Colorblind
by belowtheprecipice
Summary: He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think about anything but the colors and the scared girl in front of him—not just any girl, he realized, his soulmate. A nobody, a scavenger from Jakku was his soul mate. It took one clear look at Rey for the colors to appear. Colors were for Jedi. Colors were for the weak.
1. Red

It happened the second the mask came off.

The colors.

Kylo Ren's whole world shifted in the literal blink of an eye, and he felt dizzy from it.

It was so sudden, so jarring, that for a moment, Kylo could only stare are Rey, taking in this newfound perception. She was bound to the interrogation chair in the center of the chamber. Her features, frightened yet angry, were suddenly fleshed out in a new dimension, and Kylo realized this is not how he imagined colors looking. When his parents spoke about colors, they described them as lush and warm and pleasant. The colors Kylo saw were sharp and cold and frightening.

What scared him more than unexpected change in perception was the second thought that passed through his head: the simple truth of the universe that you only saw colors from looking at your _soul mate_.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think about anything but the colors and the scared girl in front of him—not just any girl, he realized, his soulmate. A nobody, a scavenger from Jakku was his soul mate. It took one clear look at Rey for the colors to appear.

Colors were for Jedi. Colors were for the weak.

This couldn't happen, especially not there and not with her. Kylo cleared his mind as best he could (he tried, but everywhere he looked he saw _color_ ), and returned to the interrogation.

x

Kylo stormed down the halls, flanked by Stormtroopers, his mind racing and bizarre, yet he couldn't stop looking at everything in front of him, drinking it all in, trying to remember how it all looked before, when there was only black and white and gray, but finding that everything he looked at in color replaced the prior image. The Stormtroopers, at least, looked the same as he always remembered.

He had screamed at Snoke, all the while blocking out the thought running through his mind: _soul mate soul mate soul mate_. The Supreme leader couldn't know, under no circumstance could he learn that Kylo—who begged the Dark side to take him, who removed every trace of Ben Solo, who was to be a true Sith—could see in color over some Jedi girl.

He hated her. He hated his soul mate.

When he returned to her cell, she was gone. Fire shot through Kylo's veins. His lightsaber roared to life, and as he destroyed the room, he realized that he finally saw the color of his lightsaber. Even as he hacked the chair to pieces, as he cut through the metal walls, as he screamed in rage, he understood what the color red looked like.

The world was black and white again, with the only colors being the glow of lightsabers (one red, one a color that Kylo wanted to call blue) that clashed between them. Rey could fight. She could fight better than so many others who had taken on Kylo —warriors, legends—though she had never dueled a day in her life. She had no technique, she had no plan, but she had skill, she had luck, she had determination. The red of Kylo's lightsaber was reflected in her eyes as her back dangled over the precipice. Heat licked its way up from the ground below, and Kylo felt his own face burn a bit.

"You need a teacher!" he yelled. When she closed her eyes, when she considered his offer, colors that he didn't yet know danced across her face and he was in awe that he could actually see them, all because of her. And then she turned and fought him again, fighting with all of her strength and will, and he fought back like he had never done before. Soul mate or not, she was the enemy. She had turned her back on the dark side, on his offer.

Rey cut his face and left Kylo bleeding in the snow as the ground opened between them. For a moment he thought of the symbolism, but then he watched her run further into the forest, and he heard the sounds of a ship coming to retrieve him, and his vision began to fade to black, sucking the colors away from his world again.

Good, he thought, take them away. He didn't want the colors, he didn't want this soulmate shit, and he didn't want _her_.

Before he passed out, Kylo Ren hoped that when he would open his eyes again, the world would look as it did when he had awoken that morning.

x

The infirmary room on the command ship was stark white while black paneling, and when Kylo peeled an eye open, he had a moment of hoping that the whole world would look like this, though at that same moment he knew that it wouldn't. He didn't need to jog his mind about what had happened, everything that had happened before passing out shone clearly at the front of his mind.

The interrogation. The escape. The duel.

The colors.

Rey.

The wound on his face was being treated, evident by the thick bandage coving his nose and eye and the slight burn signaling that the wound was working to close. It would scar, he knew, and he hoped it was a particularly gruesome one. Kylo had never looked very intimidating beneath his mask, and perhaps the scar could change that.

His _mask_. The damned mask was the whole reason he was in this soul mate predicament. If he hadn't listened to the girl, if he had kept it on—he hadn't tried to make her _comfortable_ —then he would have never seen her properly and he would have never had the colors appear. It was all because of his foolishness. It was _his_ fault.

His anger burst then, and he growled and ripped the bandage off of his face, causing the medical droid that idled in the corner to spring to life and rush to his bedside. The droid had some color to it—that same color he had seen in his family's lightsaber—and he lashed out at the thought of color. Kylo pushed the droid into the wall with an outstretched hand, breaking it to pieces in his anger. He strode across the small room and snatched his cloak from a hook on the wall, wrapping himself tightly as he entered the hallway.

Everyone seemed to be rushing throughout the halls. Stormtroopers marched at a rate faster than normal, and soldiers were flat out running as the barked orders into ear pieces. People noticed Kylo, though, and perhaps it was due to the wound on his face or maybe because his anger was taking up space around him the force that everyone he passed stared at him. He tried to fix his eyes ahead, staring at the black doors of the corridor as he made his way to the control room, but even that couldn't stop him from noticing the way soldiers had different hair colors. As hard as he tried to shut his mind out of the colors, to use the Force to will them away, the colors were still there, still mocking him.

 _Soul mate, soul mate_ everything seemed to whisper at him. Kylo growled and forced his way into the control room.

Hux was immediately beside him. Kylo couldn't help but notice that his hair was an incredibly vibrant color against his white skin—skin so pale that he looked close to the same as Kylo remembered from before. The color seemed close to red, which seemed to be the most popular color on the ship aside from black and white.

"You're up and about rather quickly," Hux said, raising an eyebrow. It was plain that he was staring at the scar along Kylo's face, and it occurred to him then that he hadn't even seen what he looked like. He decided to take the constant staring as a sign that the scar healed just as he'd hoped.

"Where are we going?" Kylo asked, pushing past Hux and moving to the windows. The ship was going at light speed.

"Naboo. Snoke wants me to bring you to the central base so you can finish your training," Hux said. "It was his final order." Kylo nodded once, keeping his features neutral. He didn't know where his mask was, and until he found it, he would have to keep his facial expressions to a minimum.

The words struck him in the chest. Finally, _finally,_ his training would be done. He could finally be a Sith lord. He could finally know every secret and trick that his grandfather knew. Kylo Ren would finally get the power that had been promised to him all of those years ago when he had joined the Supreme Leader. After so many defeats and humiliations, this news was the best thing he could have heard.

"What happened during your duel?" Hux said, attempting a casual tone that poorly disguised his curiosity. Kylo considered not telling him anything for a moment, then he thought about lying and saying that the wound was from his own hilt as he defended his face. The truth someone called to him, though, and Hux knew what she was capable of, so it wouldn't be an embarrassment.

"She got in a lucky shot," Kylo said. "She's untrained, but powerful. When we fight next, she won't be as lucky." Hux nodded, not saying anything for a moment. Kylo knew that the next time they fought, she wouldn't be lucky—she would be good. She'd be trained and strong, and she would be his match.

 _Match match match_. The word hung in his mind, the mental connection to the words 'soul mate' obvious, and that anger that ran through Kylo's veins earlier faintly returned.

He would beat her, he would win, he would kill this girl and return his world to black and white.

"I think," Hux said, "that you shouldn't mention her 'lucky shot' to Snoke."

"No, he'll know when he sees me. There's no way around it," Kylo said, allowing a note of annoyance into his voice. "But he knows she's strong with the Force. My punishment won't be as severe."

"For your sake, I hope so," Hux said, and he briskly walked away to give orders about landing. Kylo turned on his heel and left the control room, making his way to his cabins. Though he had just walked down the same hallway minutes before, the colors he saw now hurt his eyes. How could people see so many of them every day? No, it was infuriating.

His cabin was dark, cold, and colorless. Kylo threw his cloak off and marched across the room, opening the door to an adjoining room. Inside of it was only one seat and a pedestal, and on the pedestal sat the helmet of Darth Vader. Usually Kylo would sit when he wanted to speak with his grandfather, but this time he threw himself onto his knees before the relic.

"She's done something to me, Grandfather. Something unforgivable. I don't want these colors, I don't want her. I don't want a soul mate. Guide me, please," he begged, "show me what to do to stop this." Only once had his grandfather ever answered, and that answer had shown him the path to power, to the dark side. No one on this ship could help him, but Kylo deeply felt that his grandfather could. If only he would appear.

On this occasion there was no answer, and Kylo sighed and exited the chamber with a final glance at the helmet. It had been a bribery from Snoke, he knew that, but it was his most cherished possession—a legitimate piece of his ancestor.

The common room of his cabin featured a window from reached from floor to ceiling and could be darkened for privacy. When in space, Kylo preferred to keep the window transparent, so he could take note every planet and star the ship passed. He dimmed the windows, and his reflection appeared in the glass.

As he hoped, his face was no longer the kind face of Ben Solo. The medical droids worked fast to heal the wound, and though the skin was new and sensitive, all of the blood was gone and it looked close to perfectly healed.

The scar cutting though his face was jagged and harsh. When he reached up to touch the still tender skin, it stung, and he drew his hand away quickly, a small grin playing on his features, an expression that only pained his face a bit. His smile was lopsided, intimidating. He could see why he had been well avoided in the corridor.

Though, Kylo Ren noticed that the scar was the same color as his lightsaber—an enraged red.


	2. Blue

On Rey's hierarchy of things that could possibly happen to her, landing herself in a First Order interrogation chamber ranked even lower than stealing the Millennium Falcon _and_ learning Luke Skywalker wasn't a myth _and_ having a creepy force vision. But, as Rey noticed, anything was possible.

Kylo Ren was sitting across from where she was strapped into her chair. He sat more casually than Rey could expect from someone who went on a mad hunt through a forest before pulling a strange bit of Jedi magic (which Rey counted as cheating in any sort of fight) and then kidnapping her. Though, he didn't know where the rebels were, he hadn't found BB8, and Rey noticed she wasn't entirely injured, so she felt a tiny bit of relief in spite of her predicament.

Her relief became irrelevant, though, as she slowly became more infuriated Kylo Ren. His causality was maddening, like this interrogation fit into his regular routine. He gave nothing away, no annoyance, no anger, no edge. All of her life, Rey had picked up on people's tics and facial expressions, and she had used that to gain edges in under-the-table trades and barters. All that she could see was his mask, dark and frightening. She hated not knowing what was behind it—she loathed not knowing if Kylo Ren was even a man.

And that made anger glow within her, unbidden, taking some of the space where the fear occupied her mind.

"You still want to kill me." Not a question, but a statement. He sounded too calm, though that might have had to do with the helmet. The helmet distorted his voice, turning his voice into something inhuman.

"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask," Rey said, because she just wanted that thing off. She wanted that terrible mask off before she could even begin to get interrogated. She wanted to see his face before he tortured her, to see exactly who could do such terrible things.

Remarkably, he reached up to his head after a brief moment of pause, and he pushed a button, and he pulled the helmet off.

When Kylo Ren looked at Rey, dark eyes meeting light, the world warped.

It stunned Rey so badly that for a moment she forgot she where she sat and who was staring at her and all she could do was look at Kylo Ren, almost fascinated by the new perspective in her world. She blinked a few times. Everything was so _vibrant_.

Even he was vibrant.

The face she had imagined was that of a monster, of a scarred man, burnt to a crisp. Of a devil from the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Rey didn't expect a young face or eyes that seemed to analyze Rey's every move and tell her that he, too, was uneasy. It all startled Rey, as his face didn't even imply 'villain'. No, he looked like anything but. She also didn't expect the strange intrigue she felt when she looked at him and tried to focus on the changes in her sight, trying to remember if skin and eyes and hair had ever looked like _that_.

She realized that she must be seeing color.

Something in her gut, a strange tugging, brought up memories of old scavengers talking about how colors changed the whole world and they couldn't even describe how _wonderful_ they all looked. And Rey had to agree. Though she was fully aware of where she was, and who stared her down so intently, Rey felt wonder, and a rush of exhilaration. Color. She could see color. Her heart sped up, and for a half a second she questioned how it happened, but she threw the question away, because she didn't _care_ at the moment. She still stared at Kylo Ren, still processing the changes in her world through analyzing his entire face.

Kylo Ren, though, was done staring and moved closer. The moment of excitement, of childlike glee, was gone. The tugging in her stomach changed into a cold stone, to pure dread.

The interrogation resumed.

x

"You aren't very good at this, you know," Luke Skywalker said from Rey's right. She opened her eyes and sighed. "I understand that meditation isn't the easiest thing to learn, but your mind is on the other end of the galaxy today."

"Sorry," Rey mumbled. She'd been training with Luke (she once tried to call him 'Master Luke' and she could have sworn he was going to hurt himself laughing) for a month now, and though she was mastering the physical aspects of the Force quickly, her mental skills and meditation were no better than on the day training began.

She couldn't stop thinking about that interrogation, and how she had first seen colors. They were still novel to her, but she had grown used to staring up into a sky that was no longer gray, but rather something else entirely. The color of the sky became a comforting color to her, and she wanted to put a name to it someday.

Rey also hadn't worked up the courage to ask Luke about the colors. Really, she also had bigger things to worry about. Such as training to stop an intergalactic war and stop Kylo Ren and restore the Force to balance.

Still, she spent every morning watching the sun climb the sky and asking herself why she could see this way. After two weeks of training, she began to write it off as a Jedi gift, though she doubted that. She wanted to know, but she wanted to wait for a good time.

Luke hummed and stood, and Rey followed suit. In his many years of exile, Luke Skywalker had aged drastically. Most of his hair ran grey now, his face carried wrinkles and scares, and his eyes held a look that Rey knew from her own experience as loneliness.

However, Rey would be wrong to say that aging had taken Luke's strength. In the early morning, he would always run the perimeter of the island with Rey, coming close to matching her speed when we didn't sprint; he climbed up sheer faces of cliffs faster than several men Rey had spent all of her life watching; when Luke explained to Rey how the Force could manipulate the whole world surrounding them, he went into a handstand with only little effort. And then he lifted one hand up, and even then Rey only saw the slightest of grimaces on his face to indicate that it pained him.

"It doesn't surprise me that meditation is the hardest part of your training," Luke said. "You've never really had a time to just sit still and let yourself relax."

Unlike most people Rey had met, adults especially, Luke always made eye contact with her. She had noticed that his eyes matched the color of the sky above on a bright afternoon—the same color as his family lightsaber.

"Is there something you can do to help?" Rey asked.

"No, relaxing is something you need to learn on your own," Luke said. "But to try and do it, you first need to clear whatever is on your mind." He looked at Rey, expecting her to speak.

That was the moment, Rey realized. She could ask him right there and he would tell her everything. He'd tell her why she could see this way and what it meant. He could tell her every color in the world. It would be one less thing to worry about.

But as she tried to find the words to ask him, Rey found herself wanting to say nothing. She didn't want to think about the interrogation more than she already did. Which was often. The memory came back to her over breakfast and lunch and dinner, during her meditations and fights, even in her dreams every night. She thought of being trapped in that room, forced into that metal chair, with Kylo Ren invading her mind.

Rey also thought of Kylo Ren often. That monster. After leaving him bloody and defeated in the snow, she never once wondered if he was alive or if he had perished in that forest. A strange feeling in her chest told her that he was alive, and Rey cursed the damned thing. She blamed the feeling or connection or _whatever_ it was on his invading her mind, trying to go deep into her thoughts on Starkiller Base, though she also suspected it was equally her fault for pushing back and going into his.

Either way, the whole thing took up too much time on her mind, and she really didn't want to speak to Luke about an incident that happened over a month ago with his nephew. Luke let her know on the first night that he knew what Kylo Ren had done to his father, and he was silent for a long time before he asked Rey not to mention it for a while. He told her that he had felt it, the moment Han Solo died. He told her it felt like a punch to the gut, and Rey heard his voice break.

She hadn't brought it up since.

"I'd rather not," Rey said. "At least not right now." Luke's eyes flicked to the horizon for a moment and he nodded.

"Then tomorrow you'll try again," Luke said. Rey clenched her fists and nodded.

"I'll do it, I swear I will," Rey said. Luke looked at Rey again, and a small twinkle came to his eyes, as it sometimes did when he thought of something profound.

"The world isn't about doing or not doing, it's okay to try," Luke said. Not for the first time, Rey remembered that she was speaking to Luke Skywalker, a living legend, and that he had seen and done much more than Rey knew. His wisdom was cryptic, like everything he said came those long gone and forgotten.

Rey set her jaw and nodded to his advice, and resolved that by the next morning, she would rid her mind of the interrogation and Kylo Ren and finally, finally meditate.

x

After meditation, Luke asked Rey to perform mind tricks.

The first thing she mentioned to Luke when he asked her if she had used the Force before was how she had tricked the Stormtrooper to let her out of her cell, and Luke smiled in a way that Rey knew was only to himself. She thought of telling Luke about invading Kylo Ren's mind, but she wasn't sure she was ready to describe what she had felt, or to learn about what happened to her after the incident.

The mind tricks didn't affect Luke. He would cross his arms and raise a brow when Rey put all of her effort into ordering Luke to retrieve his lightsaber for Rey. Luke would never frown at her, but Rey could tell he expected more from her by the way, every day, he patiently let her give orders to him for an hour, each time seeming to grow a little more tired.

Rey wanted to show him that there was more to her than a lucky trick or a one-time miracle. When she manipulated that Stormtrooper, she felt a power run through her body, and since then it slept in her veins, but she could feel it. If only she could wake it up.

"We've done this before," Luke said, adjusting his robe. "You know what to do. Make me go get the lightsaber." He smiled warmly, encouragingly. Rey knew that he had the smile of a father, and she also knew that if Luke Skywalker had fathered a child instead of following the Jedi code he explained to her, his child would have been loved beyond compare.

Perhaps because of Rey's failed meditation that morning, or because of her thoughts about how she would have been trapped on Starkiller base if she wasn't capable of mind tricks, or maybe because this morning she awoke to a sunrise the same color as Kylo Ren's lightsaber, but something stirred inside of her when she focused on the trick.

She first imagined Luke going to get the lightsaber. She had to make it a real thing she could see him doing. Once she had the image, she needed to direct the Force to put the thought into Luke's mind and _make_ him listen to her. Today, the image was clearer than ever, and when she met Luke's eyes, a power within her seemed to break loose and rush though her.

"You will give me your father's lightsaber," Rey said, practically feeling the Force bend around her. As she said it, she saw Luke take a single, instant step in the lightsaber's direction.

"I will give…" Luke began, but he trailed off and smiled. He looked much younger when he smiled, more like Leia, and Rey was jubilant.

"Well done!" Luke exclaimed, and Rey couldn't do anything aside from jumping and hollering. "Mind tricks are near impossible to perform on other Jedi, Rey. Making me take that single step requires more effort than manipulating multiple Stormtroopers. That was incredible."

For the rest of the day, Rey glowed. Through every exercise she thought of Luke's step to the lightsaber and how she had made him take it. The power in her veins, lying in wait, was alive once more.

During her final task of the day, sparring with Luke, Rey looked to the sky and ocean around the island, and to the lightsaber she held in her hands, and she decided that whatever color those three things were, it was by far her favorite.

* * *

A/N: Hello all! Get ready for a super brutal slow burn Reylo. I normally don't like soulmate AUs, but with this one I couldn't pass it up. A huge thank you to Kat for helping me develop the plot and the rules about the AU. I really can't write this without you. (PS, I'm also publishing this on AO3 under the same title, so feel free to read it on there if you want!)


	3. Violet

Stories of Naboo depicted it as a grand world, lush and lovely, with beautiful architecture and a lively culture. Kylo Ren learned all of that had become myth since his grandmother died.

Naboo's forests had been flattened to make room for barracks and training grounds for Stormtroopers, the water had been poisoned to drive out the Gungans, and it remained that way to ensure they would never return. While the capital city still stood in near perfect condition, the other cities on the planet were little more than ruins. Any Naboo who had remained during the Galactic Civil War all those years ago had banded together and made small villages scattered across the planet, desperately trying to remain unnoticed by the First Order.

Kylo Ren wondered what his grandmother would have to say about her planet now. He only ever heard stories of her, but he knew she was a great ruler and a powerful woman. It was no wonder that Darth Vader had fallen in love with her. He visited her grave once, and he had rearranged scattered flowers that were tipped out of their container.

The flowers were a color Kylo occasionally saw during sunsets, a dark midnight color that matched the bruises he received during his training.

He had trained with teachers Snoke sent to him, masters in fighting from across the galaxy. He beat all of them in time, gathering bruises and scars like trophies. Snoke never fought, never trained Kylo with a lightsaber, never did anything aside from training Kylo to use the Force and his own mind to fight. The problem with Kylo's mind was going to be an issue.

Color was everywhere on Naboo. He had spent a month there, and it still took him by surprise when he watched the sunset paint the sky. It pained Kylo to look at, and each time he saw something particularly vibrant he felt bile rise to the back of his throat.

Seeing color was rare and discouraged in the First Order. Stormtrooper helmets were to remain on at most times to prevent seeing the face of a civilian and realizing they were a soulmate. Stromtroopers—weak, pathetic, undisciplined—were more than capable for turning at the sight of color. Kylo suspected that the Stormtrooper who helped Rey had turned because of that reason.

He struggled to think of her as little as possible. He couldn't get distracted during his training, he had to be stronger than her, he couldn't let Snoke know she was his soulmate. That secret had to remain buried at any and all costs.

x

More than a month after his arrival on Naboo, Kylo Ren was granted an audience with the Supreme Leader. He took corridor after corridor to the throne room, neglecting to wear his helmet, taking long strides that cleared the halls of any guards. His scar healed exactly as he needed it to: his face was harder to move, and he knew that it frightened every guard and soldier he spoke to. The face of Ben Solo was no more.

He stood before the grand doors to the throne room, willing himself to remain calm, to be strong, to take whatever cruelty was given to him. And to especially not let the Supreme Leader know about the girl.

The doors opened on their own, and Kylo stepped into a large chamber that must have once been grand and lovely. Now no light filtered through the colored glass, the air tasted stale, debris from smashed statues littered the floor. There was not a single color in the room. At the throne, sitting with his eyes closed, was Supreme Leader Snoke.

Kylo had met him in person before, for the first part of his training, but even with that, the Leader made Kylo's blood run cold.

The ghastly white skin, the scarred face, the aura that screamed for Kylo to run. He looked more like a skeleton than a man. Though not giant like his projection, the Leader still towered over if he stood before him. From where he sat on the throne—his grandmother's throne, Kylo realized—he opened his eyes and stared at Kylo.

Immediately, Kylo Ren fell to his knees. It was partially out of fear, partially out of a crushing force that pushed him down and bent his back so hard that his nose skimmed the floor. His lungs squeezed tight and he was unable to breathe. He couldn't move a single muscle.

 _Don't panic don't panic don't panic_.

"Kylo Ren," Snoke said. His voice sent a shock of panic into Kylo's mind, and he struggled to block out his thoughts of fear. "You are here to finish your training and join the Dark Side, but you should feel grateful I decided to teach you after your failure on the Starkiller Base."

"Supreme Leader," Kylo choked, "I thank you for inviting me to Naboo. I will never fail you again." Fighting with Snoke was impossible and unwise in the position he was in, and Kylo knew that if he defied the man before him in any way, he was as good as dead.

"I certainly hope not," Snoke said. He rose from his throne and walked across the throne room to Kylo's kneeling body. He took slow, heavy steps that echoed on the smooth stone walls and rattled Kylo's nerves.

"Stand up, Knight of Ren," Snoke said when he stood before Kylo. The same pressure that forced him to the ground now yanked him upright, and he stared at Snoke's chest, unable to tilt his head up to look the Leader in the eyes.

"You are frightened," Snoke said, circling Kylo. "That is only natural, and fear helps a Sith grow. But you're scared of something else. Tell me." Kylo gulped and reinforced his will, throwing up barriers throughout his mind to keep away images of every colorful sunset he watched, images of his glowing red lightsaber in darkness, images of Rey during their duel as colors danced across her face, the words that tormented him day and night: soul mate.

But Snoke still waited for an answer, though the fact he was to invade Kylo's mind regardless was clear.

"It's Han Solo," Kylo lied. Something in his chest hurt upon saying his father's name. "I feel guilt over his death. I apologize, but I cannot stop feeling this way." Snoke stopped walking and stood behind Kylo. He was silent, and silence was deadly from this man.

"He was your father," Snoke said. "Though I expected more from you, I cannot pretend I did not expect you to feel some remorse." And then Kylo felt it, the cold feeling that told him Snoke was in his mind, searching to see if this was the truth.

It was true, but just not the entire truth.

He had numbed the pain and guilt he felt for his father to the point where he could almost not feel it, like the memory of revealing the location of Luke's Jedi Academy all those years ago and leading to the children's slaughter, like the memory of betraying his entire family. Soon what he felt for Han Solo would become the same: nothing more than a memory that didn't even seem like his own, another act of horror to remember rarely.

Kylo strengthened his mental defenses and moved all feelings of guilt and Han Solo to the front of his mind.

If Snoke were to find out about Rey and the colors, Kylo was sure he would never be completely trained, that he would likely die in that throne room, with a stained glass window of a beautiful queen as the only witness to his execution.

No.

He would not die there.

He would train, and he would become more powerful than anyone the galaxy had ever seen.

Snoke probed through his feelings over Han Solo for several moments, shifting through every memory from childhood to adulthood to those from only a week before. Kylo hoped it would be enough. Just when he thought Snoke was to turn to the rest of his mind and truly hunt, the ice from Snoke's presence left his head. He took a deep, silent breath.

"Nothing I would not expect from you," Snoke said, contempt plain in his voice. "Though, I did feel as though you were blocking several things from me. Am I wrong?" Kylo's breath caught in his throat, but he did not for a second think of giving himself away.

"I hide nothing from you," Kylo said, voice steady in spite of fear and anxiety, in spite of the way he lied to the Supreme Leader.

"Good, then you'll accept your punishment for your guilt."

For one long moment, nothing happened. Kylo stood here he was, not moving a single muscle, unsure of what was to happen. Snoke had punished him frequently in his early training, but those scars had healed, those memories of pain were forgotten.

For one long moment, Kylo Ren thought he was to be let go without a punishment.

And then the pain hit him like a wave, a typhoon, a flame licking up his back. He felt as though he was on fire, burning alive. He screamed as his body was consumed, as his flesh burnt away and left his bones to the fire, as began to only see red. He fell to the floor, hardly feeling the impact through the flames consuming him. His screams echoed off the walls, sounding like they were so far away as his throat turned raw.

He was fainting, blacking out, but he couldn't, no, not with Supreme Leader Snoke watching him. Kylo would have to pick himself off the floor where he was writhing in agony and walk out of that chamber, or else the process would be repeated until he was permanently incapacitated or able to withstand it all.

So he grabbed hold of one thought in the sea of pain like a drowning man grabs for anything thrown to him: he thought of Rey.

His soul mate, though he refused to let the words come to his mind. He thought of growing more powerful than she could ever be, he thought of winning their next duel and leaving her in the snow, he thought of scarring her face and ruining her beauty, he thought of running her through and watching the color in the world drain with her life.

He clung to the thought of meeting her again, beating her, killing her, anything about her—from her voice to her fighting to her defiant to the look on her face when she cut him down—to tolerate the pain, until finally Snoke lifted the illusion.

"You are dismissed," the Supreme Leader said coldly. He moved back across the room and reseated himself on the throne, closing his eyes again.

Kylo Ren lay on the floor, cheek on cold marble. His breathing was pained and quick, his heartbeat erratic. He couldn't move his arms or legs, he couldn't even seem to blink his eyes on his own command. Every muscle in his body screamed and his bones felt as though they weighed a thousand pounds.

He needed to move. He needed to show Snoke he was stronger than this pain, that the pain gave him power. But everything ached and his body wouldn't listen to him. Snoke was still on his throne, waiting.

 _Move._

 _Move._

 _MOVE DAMN IT._

Nothing happened. He couldn't find the will in himself to rise to his feet.

And then she was there. Rey. She was standing over Kylo holding his family's lightsaber. She was as he remembered her from their fight, with that same determined face on, painted in full color.

"Get up," she snarled. "Get up and fight me. Show me you're worth something. Show me that you're worth another duel." She held out no hand, offered no kindness, wasn't even really there with him on Naboo, but the image of her there stirred and ignited something within Kylo Ren.

He planted his right hand on the cold marble and pushed himself up. It took every ounce of willpower and strength, every bit of concentration and determination, but he stood. He rose slowly, like he was ancient and dying, but he stood. Rey—no, the hallucination of Rey—nodded as he did so.

"Get up. Get up," she said, her voice growing louder. "Leave this room. We aren't done yet."

She vanished when he was on his feet.

Hunched over and every nerve wringing in pain, Kylo turned and slowly dragged himself from the chamber, stopping to learn against a wall two corridors away only after he heard the sound of the doors to the throne room slam. He didn't want to lose consciousness in the hallway where a guard would find him, but his vision was tunneling, and a hallucination of Rey didn't appear to help him.

* * *

Thank you all so much for the comments and favorites and follows! It means so much to me. My promise on writing this is that I can't publish a new chapter until I have the next one in the final drafting stages and just about ready to go. So far that hasn't been a time burden, but I can't promise that for chapters to come! And thanks again to Kat, who I just got off the phone with as she reviews the next chapter!


	4. Yellow

The shift happened while Rey cooked breakfast for herself and Luke. As she looked into the pot over open flames, it seemed to dim. It happened suddenly and then corrected itself, and Rey told herself it was from staring into the fire and continued to cook. A strange itch came over her skin, like she had stuck her hand too close to the fire, though that one seemed to linger on her skin. But then it happened again, and Rey stood quickly from the flames, wondering what the hell was happening.

"Everything okay?" Luke asked. He had been telling a story about how he blew up the first Death Star from the advice of a Force ghost. Rey had been engrossed in the story, wanting to ask about the ghosts, but the color change had startled her too deeply.

What was worse was how the colors seemed to flicker. For a few seconds they would be dimmed, and then they would shift back to normal, and then they would dim again. Her heart pounded and blood roared through her ears. The itch on her skin began to feel like a burn.

"It's…" Rey began, but then the colors corrected themselves again and seemed to hold steady for a minute.

The colors had become so natural to her that Rey had forgotten about even asking Luke about why they had happened. Even on the rare moments where her curiosity grew, she pushed them away, instead decided that she would neglect to get involved with any topics that didn't relate to training.

She was _busy_ , after all.

"It's nothing. Just thought I saw something in the pan," Rey said, sitting down. She was shaking and pressed her hands into the grass to cover them up. Luke raised an eyebrow at her.

"You can tell me anything, Rey," Luke said. And Rey knew this. She knew that he would sit with her all day and tell her what color the sky and flames were and he would tell her why she had gained the ability to see in color.

But Rey wasn't ready to hear why. An odd feeling her chest rose whenever she thought of sharing with Luke, and every time, the feeling grew so strong that she shut the possibility away. Luke had taught her to trust her feelings, to know that it was the Force telling her something. And it seemed that the Force wanted the colors to remain a mystery for some time.

"Yes, Luke," Rey said, and she forced a smile, "I know." Her skin still burnt, but it was quickly fading, turning into a discomfort.

They ate breakfast in silence.

X

Rey dangled from one hand off the edge of the highest cliff on the island. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to panic as the wind pounded against her sides. Luke sat above her, watching intently.

"Remember Rey, the Force will protect you. If you let go, you can slow your fall into the water. If you cannot hold on for any longer, you can launch yourself up next to me," Luke said, only a note of concern lacing his voice.

"Have you ever had a student do this?!" Rey yelled over the wind. Luke said nothing for a moment.

"Only one of my students possessed powers as strong as yours, and when I trained him there was a shortage of cliffs, so we used other exercises," Luke said somewhat awkwardly. Rey knew which student he was referring to.

"So you haven't," Rey said.

"You have no reason to be afraid if you can use the Force," Luke said instead of a reply, and that was confirmation enough. But Rey needed to believe in him. He had once been the last hope in the galaxy, he had destroyed a Death Star, trained under two of the greatest (and final) Jedi the galaxy had seen, and redeemed Darth Vader. She had to put her faith in everything he taught her.

And so she tried to block out her fear, but she kept feeling her fingers slip further to the edge of the cliff, and her heartbeat rock her whole body. She thought of how she could slow her fall into the ocean, but that she couldn't swim. Unless Luke knew of that problem or could think incredibly quickly should she fall, she had no choice but to pull herself up to keep from drowning.

Drowning was a common fear on Jakku. No one could swim there, and Rey knew that never in their wildest dreams could her fellow scavengers even imagine enough water to think of an ocean.

She wanted to land next to Luke. Not too far to his left or she would slip off the side, and not too far to the right or she would land on some painful looking rocks. Rey pictured herself pulling herself up and soaring through the air, only to land in a crouch beside Luke. It was a simple enough scenario to imagine, probably much harder to execute.

Rey kept thinking of it—the jump, the leap, the landing—and felt the Force slowly wrap around her, enveloping her in its safety, saying that it would carry her. All she had to do was _pull_. And so she did.

She felt lighter than she ever had been, and she felt herself in control, guiding herself to land. There was no flip, though Luke seemed to be fond of them, as she flew through the air and landed softly in the grass next to Luke, who only looked at her and smiled.

"Were you scared?" Luke asked. Rey could still feel her heart hammering in her ribcage.

"Of course. I can't swim and you've only done something like that with Kylo Ren," Rey said, and she instantly regretted it. Luke's face seemed to drop and he looked out over the cliff, away from Rey as she sat down. When they spoke of his nephew, they never mentioned his past. Only what he was planning to do and how to stop him. Never about how Luke had trained and loved him. Never.

There was a heavy silence between student and teacher as they looked over the ocean. The distant sun glowed a warm color, one that comforted Rey.

"You are allowed to be afraid," Luke finally said. "The old Jedi tried to eliminate fear, saying that it was only for the Dark side. But the truth is, Rey, that everyone is afraid, Jedi and Sith alike. The difference is how you react to the fear." Rey shifted so she was facing him, though his eyes remained on the horizon.

"What are the reactions?" Rey asked.

"Jedi—new Jedi, at least—learn to control their fear and recognize that it's a normal emotion that should be handled like one. We face our fears and gain strength from them," Luke said. "To overcome fear is the way of the Jedi."

"And the Sith?"

"The Sith give into their fear and let it consume them. They draw strength from it and let it win instead of trying to overcome it. My father gave into his fear of losing his family, and it drove him to become Darth Vader. Everything he did, he did because he was afraid of losing my mother, of losing me and my sister. What he did as Vader, killing millions and causing so much pain, I cannot forgive," Luke said. "I will never forgive him for what he's done to Leia and her people, to children lost and to the Jedi slaughtered. I cannot forgive him for what he did to Obi Wan Kenobi. But I have made my peace with him. I have forgiven the man he was before. I talk to him sometimes, but Leia doesn't. I don't think she ever will, especially after what the Dark Side did to Ben."

Tears welled in Luke's eyes, and Rey knew that she should let him have his peace on the cliff. He had spent so much time on his own, but perhaps he needed it. But a question burned inside of her, and before she could think otherwise, she asked Luke, "Do you think there's still good in him?"

Luke said nothing. He rubbed his mechanical hand absentmindedly, still staring away from Rey. He was so quiet that Rey thought he wouldn't answer her, and she was prepared to leave and go back to their camp and practice her telekinesis.

"My father died a Jedi, even after killing so many and causing such imbalance to the Force. In the end, he rejected the Dark in him and saved me. No one is entirely made of Light or Dark, and my father proved that it is never too late to turn back," Luke said. "My nephew always admired him, though never for the right reasons. But if his obsession with Darth Vader tells me one thing, it's that he longs to bring out their similarities. And my father did everything for those he loved, even change his alliances and give his life. He lived so much of his life in the Dark, but he pulled himself back to Light.

"My nephew can do the same. I know he can."

And Rey left him there, sitting alone, appearing as nothing more than a hermit, staring off into the sun.

X

Rey had trouble sleeping that night. She slept in a cave, dark and small like her home on Jakku, and every time she awoke from her light sleep she would stare at the walls of the cave and think.

In the dark Rey could see no colors. Everything was black and gray, and she tried to remember what her world had been like before colors. Had she really seen nothing more, nothing less? What did Jakku really look like, with its ruins and inhabitants?

At long last, the question wormed into her mind, and try as she might to fight it off, it still nagged her: why could she see color? Why did this strange power come to her?

She pushed the thought away and told herself that it was a Jedi power, that she unlocked it in that interrogation room because of Kylo Ren invading her mind. She repeated the thought so many times that she came close to believing it, but deep down, she knew there was more to that answer. Her feelings told her that there was more to her theory than she knew.

Her dreams were confusing and disjointed.

Amid a grand throne room made of stone, she heard shrieking. Though it was human, it sounded so close to an animal. It was a scream of pure agony and pain, and Rey felt that something in her chest break and shatter. The shrieks echoed off the walls, and Rey turned to leave, only for the scene to vanish.

Leia sat on a couch in the center of her chamber, her hair down and untidy. Across from her, in the couch opposite hers, was a handsome young man not much older than Rey. His hair was long and unkempt, his right eye scarred, his face full of trouble. He didn't seem to be entirely with Leia, though. He glowed an odd color, the same one the Skywalker lightsaber glowed. Leia looked at him coldly, but with familiarity in her gaze. The man was apologizing, begging for forgiveness, promising to do all he could to help, but when Leia opened her mouth to reply, Rey moved somewhere else. And she instantly ducked to avoid losing her head.

Rey heard the telltale hum of Kylo Ren's lightsaber as he raised his weapon again to strike the wall before him, the wall where Rey had appeared. He stuck it several times, screaming as he did, until the stone was carved with the marks of where he hit it. Rey looked at him, that something inside of her growing and swelling and taking her breath out of her lungs.

His eyes were bloodshot and marked by dark purple bags beneath them. He looked paler than when she had previously seem him, almost sickly, and the bruises on his face and jaw stood out more clearly. A few were fresh and dark in color, but others had faded to earthy looking colors, close to healing completely. Everything about him—from his eyes to the way he grabbed the wall to support himself after deactivating his lightsaber—screamed exhaustion to Rey. She almost came close to feeling pity for him.

And then a voice spoke to her.

 _Rey_ , it said. It was a man's voice, with an accent similar to her own.

 _Rey, you're learning quickly. I'm proud. You're continuing along the path I once took. Do what I failed to do_ , he said.

Rey awoke before sunrise and watched the final night stars fade away. They were a close color to the sun, and Rey was almost sad to see them go.

By breakfast, she memorized every part of her dream, but she most clearly remembered the final words of the voice.

 _Do what I failed to do._

* * *

A/N: so I accidentally posted 'Green' before this chapter, and that's not the correct order! You're not going crazy, I just had to upload this one to save the order!


	5. Green

"Force Lightning is an ancient technique that only the most powerful Sith Lords may learn and use," Snoke said. He stood before the throne—his throne—and paced as he lectured. Kylo Ren stood below him, in the center of the room, perhaps in the same spot he had writhed in pain the day before. He held his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking a slight bit.

"When used correctly, Force Lightning can be used for torture, though with your method of psychological torture I doubt you'll use this technique in your interrogations," Snoke said. "It can be used in battle, though you might find it difficult to fight multiple opponents when you must focus on a single one to direct your lightning. When channeling enough hatred, madness, and fear, a blast of Force Lightning is able to propel opponents backwards, send them flying, or even kill them.

"To generate Force Lighting, one must be fully committed to the Dark Side. Your hatred directs the lightning, and anger makes it more powerful. Darth Sidious was permanently scarred through his own Force Lightning, as it was so strong that it warped his face," Snoke said. "I am teaching you this because you have committed yourself to the Dark Side, going so far as to kill your father."

Kylo felt a familiar discomfort at that, just like he did every time Snoke brought up the murder. He kept telling himself that the feeling would go away with time, but it seemed to grow stronger instead of fade.

"Watch," Snoke said, and he raised his hands to the ceiling. Lightning burst forth from his fingertips, dancing and striking the ceiling with such intensity that Kylo could hear the air crack and sizzle. It was beautiful, but at the same time Kylo felt frightened by it. Such a force of nature, generated by a man. It was more power than he could think of.

The lighting was the same color of the Skywalker lightsaber and a clear afternoon sky, and when Kylo noticed the color, he hardly reacted to it. Colors had become normal to him, and that was the detail that made him anxious.

Sith weren't supposed to see colors, but there he stood, drinking in the shocking color of the lightning. He asked himself why he a true Sith, devout to the Dark side, could see in color. He knew the answer, deep in the back of his mind.

Kylo Ren knew he walked dangerously close to the Light side. He could feel it call him during every day of training, every morning of asking to speak to Darth Vader, every night of screaming and slashing apart the walls in his room because of the damn pull he felt, dragging him farther away from his purpose. But he fought it, he fought that calling with every ounce of his being, and sometimes he could feel himself gaining traction, only to slip backward.

It was a living hell.

Snoke ceased generating lighting and focused on Kylo, was still stood staring at the ceiling as the final slivers of lighting faded into darkness.

"Direct all of your hate and imagine it taking physical form and leaving your body," Snoke said. "Feel it flowing through your veins and force it to manifest itself outside of your body." And he stood still, waiting for Kylo to shoot lightning, waiting for the once great prodigy to prove himself again.

Kylo closed his eyes and tried to focus on what he hated the most, what would give him the most power behind his lightning. He thought of his father first, but guilt overcame any feelings of hatred and he quickly shut down that train of thought, and the same happened when he thought of his mother. He thought of the Resistance, of the defeat they caused, but that was a minor annoyance.

He thought of Rey.

He focused on every detail of her he could imagine, and he felt something strong. In his mind he could see her face with perfect clarity, and he could feel her presence as she delved deep into his mind in that interrogation room. He knew her fighting style from just one duel, but he had thought over it so many times that it felt as if he had fought her all of his life. He thought of their first meeting, the duel they shared, her face when she left him bloody and broken in the snow.

The colors. The colors that surrounded him every day. The ones that he was now familiar with.

Kylo Ren felt something. Something was pounding on his veins, making his heart speed up, causing the Force around him to grow stronger.

Yes, this was the hatred he needed to feel. All of it because of her.

He hated her so much.

He held out his hand and used every bit of willpower woven with his hatred to generate lightning, to prove himself truly Dark, to gain power to knock Rey from her place above him.

But nothing happened. Not even a single spark.

Focusing harder, Kylo remembered how she snatched the Skywalker lightsaber—his inheritance, his _birthright_ —right from him. He recalled his rage when she escaped from her cell and had snuck through the Base like it was child's play, when she cried out during his father's death, when she refused his offer to join him.

No lightning came forth from his fingers, no matter how hard he focused on the memory of her. But something in his chest was stirring. He could feel something, some feeling drawing him closer to the Force and giving him strength.

Why couldn't he do it?

Why couldn't he hate her enough to do it?

The day before, Rey had stood over him when he felt like he couldn't move, not even with the threat of more torture hanging unsaid above him. Without her, he would have had to suffer much worse, to feel flames consume him once more. She made him move, she made him leave the throne room, she made him _survive_.

He didn't hate her.

He couldn't hate her.

The realization pained him more than any would or torture could.

"You must practice. You must leave to grasp your hatred wholly and generate lightning. If you don't, then you stand no chance winning against Luke Skywalker and his new padawan," Snoke said when Kylo finally dropped his hand and opened his eyes.

"I will, Supreme Leader," Kylo said, barely able to keep his voice from shaking.

"You are dismissed."

X

"Grandfather, please, I'm begging you to answer me," Kylo said. He was in his chambers, knelt before Darth Vader's mask once more. Every night he would do this, but tonight he was desperate. He felt that he might lose his mind if his grandfather continued to ignore his pleas.

"The light is pulling at me, stronger than ever. And now I don't even hate that girl," he said, running his hand through is hair. Something about that sentence left an awkward taste in his mind, so he said, "Rey. I don't even hate Rey."

He stared out his window for a moment, looking at Naboo's star riddled sky. These were the same stars his grandmother grew up looking at, and from what Kylo knew about his grandmother (which was very little, admittedly), she was a noble woman who ruled with kindness. Kylo wondered if perhaps being in a place with such a strong connection to his grandmother—his good, kind, honest grandmother—was pulling him to the Light more so than usual.

"Grandfather, I thought I would no longer be torn apart after I killed Han Solo, but now I feel more split than ever," Kylo said, and the discomfort he felt earlier at the mention of his father returned once more. Though he wanted to, he couldn't say another word about his father because his throat began to close up. It was as if he was about to cry, and the discomfort exploded in his chest. He knew it was guilt, sorrow, loss. All feelings that he didn't know he was even possible of experiencing anymore.

He _missed_ his father.

He regretted what he had done.

Sith weren't supposed to feel anything like guilt.

But then again, Sith didn't have soulmates either.

"I need your help," Kylo said. "I don't think I can finish this training, and I don't even think I can be aligned with the Dark side anymore. I don't know what to do or what to feel. And I am lost, truly lost. Please. Show me guidance. Show me the path I need to take, because I'm not I'm on the right one."

Nothing happened. Anakin Skywalker didn't appear before him, ready to help his only grandson. If there was a time that Kylo really wanted his grandfather to speak to him, that was the most vital time. But instead Kylo Ren knelt on the stone floor before his grandfather's mask, feeling tendrils of doubt and fear and shame reach up to choke him. He couldn't take it. He couldn't take the training, the feeling of being torn in half, the colors, the guilt.

The knowledge that he was so _far_ from the Dark that he had a soulmate.

His lightsaber was in his hand before he even knew that he had summoned it.

It was on before he was even sure that he wanted to carry out what he was thinking.

He was hacking Darth Vader's helmet to pieces before he could have second thoughts.

With every stroke of his lightsaber, Kylo hoped that he would some clarity, some direction, some calm. He felt more and more rage as bits of metal flew across the room. Some caught his arms and cut, but he didn't care for such a small injury when his body was laced with fresh bruises and scars from training with captive sparring teachers from across the galaxy.

In the end, there were no pieces larger than a hand, and Kylo braced himself against the wall, breathing hard, fighting to not slip into hysterics. He shifted his weight slightly and almost yelled out in pain.

The ugliest of his bruises was on its way to healing, but it covered the entirety of his left shoulder blade. The medic who attended to him after he fell from a high level balcony during training made sure to let him know that he came close to shattering his shoulder, that he must have been dead lucky.

The bruise was the color of trees when the sun shone through their leaves.

Aside from the large bruise that tormented him so, his entire body seemed to be a mix of colors. There was a hardly an inch of torso that wasn't covered by a bruise or a healing cut. Along him arm were fresh, dark, red scabs that could barely healed before they would open again in training. The blast Chewbacca had shot into Kylo's side over a month before was in the final steps of healing, leaving a huge, circular, white discoloration. He could hardly move half of his face due to the large scar Rey cut across it.

 _Rey_.

The thought of her sent him into another rage, screaming and slashing his lightsaber at the wall, cutting deep grooves into the stone. He screamed his throat raw and slashed until his arm became numb, and then he switched hands and kept attacking.

She consumed his thoughts. She was his soulmate but also his greatest enemy. He couldn't become a true Sith Lord with her in his head, with those colors she caused ruining him. She was off somewhere he would never find with his damned uncle and yet she still influenced him, helped him, strengthened him, ruined him, tormented him.

And he tried to hate her, he really did. He thought of killing her, but the thought no longer gave him pleasure to picture. Instead, the idea of running her through made him feel sick, and in turn he felt pathetic. He wanted to feel joy at the idea of a black and white world, a world without Rey, where he could truly be part of the Dark side, but the idea made him feel like he had lost his footing and fallen. It was an unthinkable world.

He didn't hate her, but he didn't love her either. He knew that whether he liked it or not, he was tied to her, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Later, he lie awake, staring out at Naboo's moon, and he knew that he would never be able to complete the training. No matter how hard he tried and lied and worked, he would never be fully wrapped in the Dark side, he would never generate Force lightning, he would never be as strong as Darth Vader.

For some reason, this revelation didn't hurt him as much as the fact that he was now utterly, completely lost.

* * *

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews, you've all been so wondrful! A huge thank you to Kat for the idea of Force Lightning and for reading all of these chapters before they have any good grammar and make little sense!

A/N: PLEASE READ 'YELLOW' IF YOU HAVEN'T! I uploaded this chapter without Yellow, which comes before it! Please go back and read Yellow!


	6. Orange

"Luke?" Rey asked. Luke opened his eyes and blinked several times. The pair sat on a wide cliff, meditating. Rather, Luke meditated and Rey remembered the voice she heard the night before in her dream, trying to remember where she heard it beforehand.

"Yes?" Luke said. He didn't seem annoyed that Rey had interrupted his meditation or that she herself hadn't been meditating, and she took that as a good sign to continue.

"Could you tell me about Force ghosts?" Rey asked. Luke nodded and sat forward, relaxing into a more casual position, and Rey did the same by uncrossing her legs and tucking her knees under her chin.

"When someone strong with the Force dies, their spirit becomes one with the Force and they continue to live after death," Luke said. "They can come back and speak to the living, give guidance, help their descendants."

"Can a person see just any ghost?" Rey asked. Luke shook his head.

"You need to have a connection to the ghost," Luke said. "If you knew them in life or if they were your family, you can see them. I can see my father, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Master Yoda, but I will never be able to meet Jedi from before I was born."

"What about visions? Are visions true?" Rey asked, thinking now of her dream. She had no family and knew no dead Jedi, but that voice. That voice wasn't her imagination, it belonged to a real man. And she had heard it before.

"Visions are trickier. Yoda's visions were clouded and unclear, and he claimed that the future was always hard to predict; and my visions are rare. The ones I've had have showed truth, but were incredibly confusing," Luke said, and then he looked to the ground as if he was thinking of something. "My father told me he suffered from visions occasionally, and that they were true for him."

Rey nodded. Luke looked up from the grass and squinted at Rey, like he was puzzling over her face. She felt no discomfort when he did this, unlike the first time Kylo Ren unmasked himself and did the same thing. Back in that interrogation room. Back when she first saw color.

"Rey, are you having visions?" Luke asked. There was no note of suspicion or caution in his tone; it was just a simple question. Like most Jedi issues Rey had faced recently, she considered lying. Visions sounded like tricky business, and she didn't want to interpret the incident at Maz Kanata's pub or the dream from the night before incorrectly.

But visions also sounded common for Jedi, and she was tired of jumping around the truth to Luke.

"Yes. I had one when I found your lightsaber at Maz's pub, and I had one last night," Rey said. "In the first one, I saw places and people I didn't know or understand, but I also saw the memory of when I was left on Jakku. I saw Kylo and the Knights of Ren and a massacre around them. And I saw you, reaching out to that R2 unit I came here with," Rey said.

"And then last night, I saw a throne room and heard someone screaming inside of it, I saw Leia talking to a young man, but he looked odd, like he was simmering. And I saw Kylo Ren, and he was angry—destroying a wall by hacking it with his lightsaber. None of it made sense," Rey said. Luke hummed and rubbed his metal hand where it fused with his flesh.

"Does any of it make sense to you, Rey?" Luke asked. Rey wanted it all to, but everything was so disjointed, full of memories and experiences that didn't belong to her.

"No, not really. I've tried to put it all together, but it all feels wrong, like I'm missing pieces," Rey admitted. Luke retreated into his own thoughts, silently murmuring words to himself. Rey tried to piece together the visions, to find if there were any pieces that fit like a puzzle, if anything was common in the two visions. And then she realized that there was a common thread.

Yes, that's where she heard the voice before.

"A voice," Rey said, confused, "spoke to me at the end of both visions. It was a man. He said my name the first time, and he told me that these were my first steps. And last night he said he was proud that I was learning quickly and to do what he failed to do. It still doesn't make sense." This, however, seemed to intrigue Luke very much, who quickly turned and looked Rey in the eyes, a sudden intensity behind them that startled Rey.

"What did he sound like? Was there anything remarkable about his voice?" Luke asked. Rey knew that Luke was onto something, and she knew that he wasn't going to tell her what he was thinking of until he was sure. It annoyed her, but she trusted him, and she trusted that he was on her side and wanted to understand the visions too.

"He sounded like me; we talk the same way," Rey said. Luke blinked and then nodded his head very slowly, as if he had solved a problem that had bothered him for a long time. The pair sat in silence, Rey puzzling over Luke's reaction.

"Luke," Rey said, "Do you have any idea what it means?"

"I have an idea, but I don't know for sure."

X

That night, Rey crept out of her cave and close to Luke's when she heard him talking. After living alone in a desert for so long, Rey's ears picked up even the softest noises. Including voices. Especially voices.

His cave was a bit down the island from hers, far enough that Rey could pretend that she was alone again if she wanted to. Under moonlight, she softly walked close to Luke's cave, stopping when she was close enough that she could make out words, but far enough away that Luke wouldn't able to sense her energy being close by. She even tested to make sure that she couldn't feel Luke's presence.

"Her visions are troubling," Luke said. "She's having visions more powerful than mine or my father's. She can see the past and places she's never been, and see people has no connection to."

"Perhaps she is connected to them and she doesn't know why," was the answer, and Rey's blood ran cold.

It was the voice. The man from her visions. He was inside the cave, speaking to Luke. If she were to enter the cave right then, she would see who it was, and maybe she would understand the visions and the colors and the feeling in her chest.

Instead, Rey remained where she was, intent on hearing everything.

"You know just as well as I do that she's not telling me everything," Luke said, and Rey slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from making a noise. Of course he knew she was hiding something—that she was lying to him.

"Without a doubt. She will tell you, though, but you have to give it time. The weight she's carrying is something that will tear her apart if she doesn't share it with someone," the man said. Rey's breathing quickened, and she began to shake. The feeling in her chest, she realized, was whatever weight they were talking about.

And they were right. It would tear her apart.

"What do you think it is?" Luke asked, and there was no reply for a long few moments. Rey thought they must have heard her, and that she was caught and to be punished for eavesdropping. The traders at the outpost would have done that. Hell, she'd seen ears removed for eavesdropping on the wrong deal.

"I have some ideas, but I need to think more on them and find more information. You need to keep training her. I will speak to her sometime in the future, just not right away. She's our last hope, much like I was, and then you were," the voice said. Luke laughed once.

"You never met Leia—she believed you were the end all, be all hope. I think that she always will, especially after you told her about Anakin. But I will train her, you have my word," Luke said.

Rey snuck back to her cave and didn't fall asleep until colors bled onto the early morning sky.

X

It was Luke's turn to cook breakfast. He sat over a large pan and cooked silently; he did most things silently, after so many years of being on his own. Sometimes if Rey didn't come into his line of sight before speaking he would jump at the sound of her voice.

Rey sat down directly across from Luke and waited until he looked up from cooking to speak. She wasn't exactly sure what to ask Luke, but she was going to ask something, else she wait in silence until Luke got around to explaining things to her. Which would really take some time, judging by what she heard the previous night.

"Who were you talking to last night?" Rey asked, ignoring the fact that she internally winced at her own bluntness. Luke raised an eyebrow and prodded the food in the pan.

"I thought I felt your presence nearby. You'd make a good assassin," Luke said. "I was speaking to an old friend of mine, a Force ghost. He died a long, long time ago, when I was about your age. Though, he's said that he died before that, when my father fell to the Dark side. Death always seemed to be unimportant to Jedi."

It wasn't an answer Rey was looking for, but she learned early on that sometimes, to get the right answer from Luke, she needed to ask several questions. She nodded, and asked, "Who was he?"

"My first Jedi Master, Obi Wan Kenobi," Luke said, smiling. "He trained my father before me, and he has always been with me to give counsel when I needed him. He was a good man."

She knew who Obi Wan Kenobi was as Luke mentioned him frequently. He seemed to be in most every story he told her, and he also repeated old advice he had received from Kenobi. He seemed more like a legend than a real man, but then again, Rey had thought the same about Luke for most of her life. And she heard Kenobi, both in her vision and as a Ghost.

"Why did I hear Obi Wan in my dreams?"

Luke looked incredibly uncomfortable. He mumbled something about needing rest and that breakfast was getting close to finishing, and Rey rolled her eyes.

"Luke, I know you know why I hear him," Rey said. "Please, just be open with me about this. Don't hide secrets about me. You dealt with so many secrets being hidden from you all your life, don't do the same to me."

It seemed to pain Luke to turn and meet Rey's eyes. He fiddled with his mechanical hand and pursed his lips.

Rey thought she knew the answer, she thought she knew why Luke was so unprepared to answer this question. She just couldn't let herself believe it, because there was no way it could ever be true. She would bet everything on her guess, which passed through her mind unbidden, to be completely wrong.

"He's your grandfather," Luke said at last.

But Rey was right.

For a moment she felt numb, completely shocked. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her or the Force around her. She heard her heartbeat and breath, but she couldn't hear Luke as he mouthed her name.

Grandfather.

 _Family._

Rey had a family. She was a granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi. She was a Kenobi. Rey Kenobi. _Rey Kenobi_. Her name sounded weird with the surname added to it. But that was her last name. Her _family's_ name.

Then she felt pure joy fill her body, and she was grinning, covering her smile with her hands and laughing. This threw Luke off guard, as his face was lined with worry and concern. He was reaching out to her with his human hand, looking as if to comfort her. Rey realized that he thought she would be devastated, angry, or confused. Not excited and joyous.

"I have a family!" Rey laughed. "I'm a bloody Kenobi!" She was elated, over the world, feeling like a bright sun exploded in her chest.

"Yes, a Kenobi," Luke said, allowing himself a smile. "I don't know who your grandmother or parents were, but maybe Obi Wan could tell you that sometime." Even though she was disappointed that her immediate family was still a mystery, she still felt jubilant at the thought that she had a family and a linage to trace.

She was Rey Kenobi, granddaughter of Master Jedi Obi Wan Kenobi, and she quite liked the sound of that.

"How can I speak to him? How do you talk to him? I know he said last night that he would speak to me soon, but I don't entirely have the patience to wait. I just have so many questions," Rey said, now leaning close to the fire in her eagerness. Luke shrugged and tended to breakfast.

"Ghosts are tricky beings. They come to you when they want to, not when you want. You can beg and plead, but a Ghost won't appear to you until they wish to. It's pretty annoying," Luke said. "But I'm sure Obi Wan will appear to you soon, now that you know he's your grandfather."

A million questions swam through Rey's head: _Why has he never spoken to me face to face? Who are my parents? Who left me on Jakku?_

 _Why can I see colors?_

But Rey put these thoughts out of her mind and instead focused on one thing: she had a family.

She was Rey Kenobi.

* * *

A/N: Hello everyone, sorry about the delay! This past week has been super crazy, but I have two chapters in the final editing stages so you won't hve to wait long for another update. Thanks for reading.


	7. Gold

Two weeks passed before Snoke summoned Kylo Ren again. In that time, Kylo made progress with neither his Lightning nor his feelings. He still felt lost with nowhere to turn. He still felt torn apart. He still felt agony whenever he thought about Rey.

Darth Vader still hadn't appeared to him, but Kylo didn't really want to speak to him anyways.

When Hux arrived in Kylo's chambers to deliver the summons from Snoke, he pointedly avoided looking at the ruins Kylo had made of his room. Kylo hung up curtains to block out light from his large balcony, and the entire room was dark and colorless. All of the walls were scarred and blackened, still standing only due to the fact they were stone; every bit of furniture lay in heaps of wood and fabric, scattering to cover the entire floor; even his bed was in shambles, looking as if a massive storm had devoured it.

The bed didn't matter. He was barely sleeping. Every dream featured Rey standing above him, either how she looked after their duel or how she looked when she appeared as a hallucination. It unsettled him every time, to say the least.

"How has your training been?" Hux asked, somewhat awkwardly, as he walked with Kylo in the direction of the throne room. Both of them knew that small talk wasn't normal for them. Kylo didn't care.

"Fine," Kylo said coldly. Hux nodded, as if brushing him off was an acceptable answer. They turned a corner and were met with the sight of a Naboo sunset, which Kylo hadn't seen in the previous two weeks, as he refused to leave his darkened room.

It was still as beautiful as every other sunset he had watched, and just as infuriating. He remembered sitting on the roof of the Millennium Falcon with his parents as a child, watching the sunset in shades of grey, wondering what it would be like to see the sunset like his parents could. It was a long time ago, before Han started leaving to go on adventures and before Kylo began training with Luke. It was back when his parents were happy, when they were a family.

When they saw colors, his parents told him, they hid it and kept fighting for three years. But really, they had been smitten from the moment they met. The hardest part, Leia told when he asked her about the colors one night, was admitting to each other that they were the reason they saw in color. Taking that leap of faith, Han said gruffly while teaching his son to fly the Falcon, was the hardest one he ever took, not knowing the outcome.

Kylo Ren wished the hardest part would be telling Rey, if he ever accepted it himself first. If he ever talked to her in a context where murder wasn't a goal.

He wished that the hardest leap of faith was about colors, not about sides in a galactic war.

He almost wished his parents were there to talk to him.

But he marched on past the sunset, leaving Hux to walk quickly to keep pace with him.

"Have you made any progress in finding Skywalker?" Kylo asked.

"No, we still lack the final piece of the map that was hidden in that droid," Hux, his tone laced with annoyance. Kylo nearly turned and choked Hux for his rudeness, but instead decided to focus on the little feeling that bloomed in his chest like the furthest beams of a sunset.

 _Rey hadn't been found yet_.

It was an irritating thought, to say the least. Yes, he was almost relieved that Rey (and by extension, Luke) was still in hiding, far from the First Order. She was training, and she was _alive_. But she was also hidden from Kylo, who wanted to confront her, fight her, reach out to her.

Hux left Kylo at the doors to the throne room without saying a word. That night, the icy aura of Snoke seemed to seep out of the door before it even swung open. Kylo tried to brace himself, but he still felt the instinctive urge to run far, far away. But still, he stepped into the throne room and tried to fight growing panic as the doors closed behind him.

The air inside was cold, chilling him down to the bone. It was Snoke's aura, so powerful.

"Show me," Snoke said from his throne. If Kylo didn't hold out his hands to try and summon lightning, they would be shaking at his side right then. Instead, his whole body trembled. He had never seen a spark, a flash, a light come from his fingers, no matter how hard he focused.

But he had to show something. He had to show progress. Already, Snoke was shifting forward on his throne—not his throne, no, the throne of the Queens of Naboo, Kylo thought bitterly—to scrutinize every move Kylo made.

Kylo Ren's nerves were on edge, his heart pounded louder than he had ever heard, his blood ran cold.

He thought of the resistance, all of those worthless soldiers fighting a futile war because they thought it was right. He thought of the wound Chewbacca had given him, a shot from someone as close as family. He thought of his father leaving Leia and him behind so he could go on galactic joyrides.

He thought of Snoke, sitting where his grandmother once sat as a powerful, wise leader.

He felt hate, but no lightning appeared. He felt no spark in his blood, no strange power coming over him.

Kylo thought of those nights where Vader would never answer his pleas, where he sat close to tears wishing desperately for guidance. He was so lonely.

Nothing.

He thought of himself, a man killing his own father and forsaking his mother. A confused boy who betrayed his uncle and let dozens of children die. A lost soul who wished death on his soulmate before he could accept what she was.

Shit, he did hate himself. He hated himself so much. But even all of that hate was not enough to draw lightning out of his body.

He thought of Rey. Of her courage, of her skill. He thought of how she was in every dream, consuming his senses both as he was awake and as he slept. He thought of the colors dancing over her face as she drew power from within herself to win the duel. If only he had her strength, to reach into himself and pull out power he needed.

The hatred he felt for himself washed away, and he was left with nothing but strange feelings regarding his soulmate.

Not hate, but not love. Something in the middle. An odd and dangerous mix of emotion too dangerous to feel in front of Snoke, and he locked it away. He threw up every mental barrier he could.

"You have nothing to show me," Snoke sneered. Kylo felt as he did before he was tortured weeks before. If anything, he now desperately wanted Force Lightning to save himself from what Snoke was about to do. He wanted to run and hide far away from Snoke, away from whatever punishment was so be doled out.

He couldn't breathe. Time seemed to stand still.

"I have trained you in every way I could, since you were nothing more than a weak, Light boy. I turned you into something stronger, more powerful, and you have nothing to show for it," Snoke said. "You said you wouldn't fail me again, yet here you are. The same weak boy."

"I swear—!" Kylo protested, but his windpipe squeezed shut. He was immobile, choking. Snoke looked at him, contempt evident in his cold eyes.

"You were once a prodigy, and now you are a failure. Leave my sight, now," Snoke said, the ice in his voice growing colder by the moment. Kylo began feeling dizzy from the lack of air, afraid that he would be choked unconscious, but he collapsed into a heap onto the floor, coughing and taking deep breaths.

Failure, failure. The word followed him his whole life. A failure of a leader, never as commanding and demanding as his mother. A failure of a pilot, never as quick and clever as his father. A failure of a Jedi, never as kind and peaceful as his uncle. A failure of a son, killing his father to try and quell his own inner conflict. A failure of a Sith, not even able to feel hate for anyone besides himself.

A complete, utter _failure._

He didn't stay and try to protest that he wasn't a failure, that he wasn't Light, that he deserved to be prodigy of the Dark. He near ran out of the throne room, back to his room, boots slapping against stone, soldiers turning to witness his flight.

 _No_ , _no_ , he couldn't do it anymore.

Upon entering his room, Kylo flung the curtains hiding his balcony off of the wall and walked out to stare into the night sky. It was a brilliant inky color, but it wasn't quite black.

For a moment he thought about flinging himself from the balcony, ending all of his misery and suffering right there. He wouldn't think of his father's hand on his face, his mother's smile, his uncle's lessons. He wouldn't have to stay awake every night and beg for his grandfather's help. He wouldn't have to worry every waking moment if Snoke wanted him dead in the most painful and gruesome ways. No more training or pain or fear or conflict or color.

 _Color_.

He had a soulmate. The Force had created a connection for him to someone who he should accept unconditionally, someone he should care for, someone who should be perfect for him. Of course, it wasn't that easy. But the thought of Rey, powerful and perfect Rey, pulled him away from the ledge. She would never. She was so strong, so determined.

She was his soulmate. He was made for her.

The Force had chosen someone for him, someone who he needed. He was so close to the Light that the Force was still giving him this gift. There was someone in the universe- not just anyone, but a Jedi named Rey—who he was meant to spent his life with.

Something, the odd feeling he felt when he thought of her during his Lightning training, awoke in his chest. A new flame to give him strength and power.

He would live.

He would live for her.

He would stay alive through it all because she was his _soulmate_ and she was real. He didn't know why, but it was what his mind screamed for him to do, what his heart said was right, what he wanted more than anything in that moment. He held onto that feeling like a lifeline, and he didn't let it go.

* * *

A/N: This story is gonna be 27 chapters, so this si going to be wild.


	8. Scarlet

When Luke mentioned that Rey should build her own lightsaber, she was ecstatic. He mentioned it after their daily sparring match, during which Rey had won (again).

"You don't battle like a usual Jedi does," Luke said. "It's probably because of that staff you've been fighting with. You're so used to using a long weapon and defending yourself from the front and back at the same time that I don't think a usual lightsaber design would suit you," Luke said. Rey thought about this for a moment, remembering how strange her duel with Kylo Ren felt because of the shorter weapon she used.

"So, I have to make a really long lightsaber?" Rey asked, and Luke laughed and shook his head.

"No, I was thinking a double ended blade," Luke said.

"I didn't know that was an option," Rey said, shrugging. She liked the idea of a double ended blade, of not having to use these close range Jedi duel moves and instead reusing the ones she had learned from her own defense. It would feel so natural, so easy.

"It isn't a popular design, but it exists. Your grandfather once killed a Sith named Darth Maul who used a double ended blade," Luke said. "I think it's the perfect design for you."

Rey tried not to mention to Luke that Obi Wan still hadn't talked to her. She understood that he would speak to her eventually, maybe after her training was complete, but it still wasn't what she wanted. Now that she finally had a family, she was eager to ask about them. She wanted to know about her grandmother and parents and everyone who came before them.

"So, I have to make it?" Rey asked.

"Yes. I started using my father's lightsaber, but I had to build my own after," Luke said, holding up his robotic hand. "The purpose of making your own lightsaber is so it truly bonds to you. It's one of a kind, from design to weight to color."

The mention of color jolted Rey. She noticed, of course, that Luke's lightsaber was a different color than his father's, and that Kylo Ren's was also a different color. But she hadn't thought about the fact that for her own she would pick a color.

"For the color aspect, I'll help you with it," Luke said, then he eyed her suspiciously and added, "Unless you won't need my help?"

Rey froze.

"You see in color?" Rey asked, her voice shaking. Luke nodded.

"I have for as long as I can remember," Luke said. Rey sat down on a rock and tucked the Skywalker lightsaber into her belt before pulling her feet up onto the rock. She set her head down on her knees, and Luke took the cue and sat on the grass, crossing his legs.

 _Finally_ she would get some answers.

"Why are you able to see them?" Rey asked.

"Some Jedi, powerful Jedi, are born seeing them," Luke said. "Yoda was able to see colors from birth, too. It's rare, to have seen them your entire life. Most people don't see color until their later years."

Which explained Rey's only being able to see them recently.

"So, can only Jedi see them?" Rey asked, and Luke shook his head. He tugged on his beard a bit as he explained.

"No, those who walk on the Light side will usually see in color at some point. Those on the Dark side usually don't, but it's not impossible. True Sith, though, will never see in color," Luke said.

Rey tried to remember a time before her power had awoken and given her colors, to remember what it was like to only see in black and white and grey. The memories were odd, like there was something off about them. Of course, there was no color in her memories, and she had grown so used to seeing them in her everyday life.

"My aunt and uncle could see color, and they were always confused about why I was able to see them, but they taught me the names of every color they could, so I grew up away from the confusion of suddenly being jolted into seeing them later in life," Luke said.

"Can you tell me the names of some colors?" Rey asked, and Luke rolled up his sleeve to reveal a cut on his arm from their sparring match. He was still bleeding, and he held his arm up to the sun so Rey could see the color clearly.

"This color, the color of blood, is called red," Luke said, and it was as if a door opened inside of Rey.

The color of blood, a blaster's beam, and Kylo Ren's lightsaber was _red_. It almost sounded far from a real word, but it was very much real, and it was the first color Rey ever learned.

"I'm guessing that you see in color, too?" Luke asked, evidently knowing his answer from staring at Rey's slack-jawed expression.

"Yeah," Rey said, still in awe of _red_. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier but I was getting used to them." Luke smiled gently, like a father would, and rolled his sleeve down again.

"Have you seen them your whole life?" Luke asked, and it was Rey's turn to shake her head.

"No, not until very recently," Rey said.

"When? Where were you?" Luke was grinning, which made him look decades younger. For a moment, Rey could almost see the face of the boy hero that became a legend.

"It was on the StarKiller base, when I was being interrogated by Kylo Ren. When he took his mask off, I could see color," Rey said.

Luke was no longer smiling. He had gone very, very pale.

"Is something wrong?" Rey asked, suddenly worried. What had she done wrong? What it something she said? Was Luke worried about her seeing the colors so late in life?

"You saw color for the first time when you looked at my nephew?" Luke asked, slowly. His voice was trembling.

"Yeah. That's when I was first able to access my Jedi powers," Rey said.

"What?" Luke asked, his face unchanging.

"I wasn't able to use my powers until I was in that room, which is why I only saw color right then," Rey said. "Colors are influenced by the Force, right? And that was the first time I ever connected with the Force."

"Rey, the colors have nothing do with your ability to use the Force unless you were born seeing color," Luke said. He was standing up, then he was kneeling in front of Rey, looking up into her eyes. Luke's eyes, the eyes that shared Rey's favorite color, were too intense for Rey to remain calm.

She felt her heart speed up and her breaths come quicker. Her throat felt a bit tight, like she was having a hard time breathing.

"Then what do they mean?" Rey asked, and Luke didn't look away from her eyes.

"You see color when you look at your soulmate for the first time."

 _No_ was the first word that came to Rey's mind.

 _No,_ Luke couldn't be right.

 _No_ , he was whole heartedly mistaken.

 _No_ , Kylo Ren couldn't be her soulmate.

But she knew he was right, she _knew_ , because of that feeling in her chest. It bloomed at the word 'soulmate' and spread throughout her body. That strange feeling, the same feeling that told her that Kylo Ren was alive, the one that seemed to appear whenever she let her thoughts wander to him, the one that brought him into every dream and vision she had—it was a bond because he was her _soulmate_.

The dreams. The dreams where she saw him in pain and suffering and agony, the dreams where her chest seemed to implode from a strange feeling. Kylo Ren was her soulmate, she was bonded to him, she could share his pain. She pitied him, she worried for him, she felt something strange for him.

Because he was her soulmate.

The universe had destined her to bond with someone she could not hate more.

He had been in her mind and she in his, they had fought like two halves of the same coin, she had marred his face and left him bloody in the snow with no regard if he lived or died….

Rey was running before she had any idea where she could go. Luke shouted her name and tried to chase her, but the fact remained that even when Luke ran his hardest, Rey was twice as quick as him when she went her fastest. She was running away from the word chasing her: _soulmate soulmate soulmate_.

But still it caught her, and she was thinking of the times that Luke swore he wasn't completely lost and she agreed with Luke, or thinking of how she watched him slash at a stone wall in her vision before breaking down and how she actually felt something for him when she watched his suffering. It was his screaming she heard in her vision, so close to an animal from the pain, and in spite of adrenaline fueled panic, Rey almost wondered what the hell what happening to him.

She didn't stop running before she was face to face with the wall of the sheer cliff she hung from week before. Rey grabbed the small handhold and pulled herself up, climbing like she used to do in Jakku. Back when everything was still in black and white, back before she had a soulmate.

The thought still sickened her.

Her mind thought back to the moment she could see color, when Rey was so stunned by his face and color that she couldn't help but stare at him for several moments. She thought about how she wondered if colors were always so intense, so vibrant.

And they weren't.

They had never been as vibrant as when she looked into the face of her soulmate for the first time.

She was climbing faster, higher, and riskier than she usually would have, ignoring the sound of the waves below her or Luke's yelling. She wanted to climb, wanted to forget that she was bonded to Kylo Ren because he was her soulmate.

The Force had destined her to love someone she hated more than anyone else in the galaxy.

She was startled by her sudden thought, and she missed her next handhold, and then she was plummeting down into the ocean, letting the water engulf her, still only able to think of Kylo Ren's face when she had first seen color.

Swimming to the surface wasn't an option. Swimming at all wasn't an option. She sunk further into the water, desperately trying to reach for the surface but only finding it was getting further away. A calm began to wash over her.

And then she heard a voice as her lungs began to scream, to beg for air. It wasn't Obi Wan and it wasn't Luke.

Kylo Ren appeared before her, just as she remembered him. Nothing about his face screamed villain, and it especially didn't when he looked at her from under the water.

"You can't die here," he said. Rey wondered how he could speak do clearly when Rey couldn't even breathe. Her vision was beginning to go fuzzy on the edges and her lungs felt like hellfire.

"Rey, you have to push yourself toward the surface. You have to survive this and face me again. We have unfinished business. Now, PUSH," Kylo screamed at her, his face turning desperate. And Rey did push.

She couldn't swim, she had grown up in a sea of sand, but she still jerked her body in an effort to get closer to the sunlight. She grew weaker at every stroke, but Kylo was next to her, screaming for her to survive.

But she couldn't do it. She was too weak.

She stared at Kylo as she let herself sink into the ocean, finally giving in and breathing in saltwater.

Rey was almost unconscious when she felt a firm hand close around her wrist and pull her up toward the surface. She opened her eyes a crack, and through the black and white and grey, she saw flickers of Kylo Ren.

It would happen that her soulmate would save her. Of course. Her eyes grew too heavy and closed as she broke the surface, and when she opened them moments later, she was lying on her back, staring up at a clear sky and Luke Skywalker, who looked like he had been crying. His eyes, the sky, the water, all the same color.

Rey took a deep breath and her lungs hurt. She looked around, only to herself and Luke on the shore.

Kylo Ren wasn't there, he had just been a hallucination. He wasn't there to help her or push her. He had only ever hurt her and fought her.

But he was still her soulmate, whether she wanted him or not.

And Rey began sobbing.


	9. Navy

He was looking at holos of his grandmother. They were stored in the large library that was only a corridor away from Kylo Ren's chambers, and he grabbed several holos regarding her and stalked back off to his room, barricading himself away from the rest of the palace.

Padme Amidala was a beautiful woman, and she reminded Kylo Ren of Leia very much. He watched first the holo of her coronation, staring in fascination as the young girl allowed her face to be painted in white and red, marking her ascension to queen. He knew from reading the commentary on the ceremony that she was their fifth youngest queen, but she was beloved.

Kylo watched a holo of her celebrating the end of the siege on Naboo with the Gungans. In the background stood two Jedi, a man and a young boy beside him. Without looking at the commentary on the Queen's party, he knew the boy was Anakin Skywalker. Funny how he had never thought that Darth Vader wasn't always Darth Vader, but there he was, standing proudly in his new Jedi robes behind the girl he would one day marry.

He listened to audio excerpts of her senate speeches and realized that his mother's talent for politics was on par with her mother's before her. News holos reported on her heroism during the first battle of the Clone War, detailing her direct involvement in the fight. An image of a battered team was featured in the report, and he picked out Padme quickly, as she hardly changed appearance with age. Next to her were two Jedi: Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. Both looked worse for wear, and his grandfather's arm was severed clean off. But the trio still looked like they could go back into battle.

The final holo Kylo Ren looked at was of Padme's funeral. All of Naboo was covered in a dark, dark color, one that was close to the night sky. It seemed that the entire planet turned out to pay their respects. A close-up of the Senator showed that even in death she looked peaceful, elegant, poised. A voiceover of one of her speeches played over the footage.

"Hatred and fear is not the way to peace," she said. Her voice was amplified, so Kylo guessed that she was speaking before the senate. "To win this war, we must not let our prejudices and anger blind us from the real enemy: the Dark Side of the Force. We in this senate are not enemies but instead allies, and we all must band together and support our brothers and sisters in need of help. There is so much hatred in the galaxy, and we must fight it with unity and love. We must make this a safe world for our children."

She had a voice that could force armies into action.

Kylo put the holo with the rest of the ones he used, careful to not damage it, and reached for another one, unsure of what he would watch next, when he was unable to breathe.

He reached and grabbed his throat, trying to remain calm. He could break a Force choke, free himself, but this wasn't a Force choke. It was something else, something he had never felt before. It felt like he was being choked from within, while a Force choke felt like someone was squeezing down on your neck from the outside.

And then he could breathe again, but all the color left his world. Kylo Ren didn't take a single breath as he looked around his room, seeing that each and every bit of color in his eyesight had suddenly disappeared. He panicked then, because a sudden absence of color meant one thing.

Rey.

He didn't move. He didn't think. He could only think her name, fear growing as the seconds ticked by and color didn't return to his vision.

 _Reyreyreyrey._

He never felt fear like that before. It was as if all the blood in his body stopped moving, his heart stopped pumping, his lungs stopped breathing.

His soulmate.

Color would only disappear if something serious happened to her.

His _soulmate_.

She could be dead.

Rey could be _dead_.

Kylo leapt to his feet and began to walk the length of his room, hyperventilating. The walls seemed to close in around him. His vision became crystal clear and the rubble around him shook as he lose control of the Force in his adrenaline.

She couldn't die.

 _Reyreyreyrey_.

Every bit of scrap material that had once been furniture flew against the walls and smashed. The very stone that made up the walls seemed to tremble. Kylo felt like he was going to vomit.

 _This can't be happening_.

And then the world snapped back into full color, so suddenly that it brought Kylo Ren to his knees.

He cried in both fear and relief, sobs racking his body as he curled on the floor. He cried so hard that he almost couldn't breathe properly. She was okay, she was alive.

Rey wasn't dead.

And he made a rash decision then:

He needed to find her immediately.

Han Solo had taught his son how to fly ships of every kind, though Kylo Ren never became the pilot his father hoped he'd be. That didn't mean he was a bad pilot, though. In fact, he was rather good, just not on par with his father.

 _Failure_.

Kylo Ren had no problem walking into the hangar and picking out the transport ship he usually travelled on. The guards stepped right out of his way, and when he entered the ship, he heard a timid officer clear him for take-off. Really, it was too easy. If he was still loyal to Snoke and the First Order, he would have definitely punished the guards and commanders who were letting him escape with no resistance.

An escape. That's what it was.

He seated himself at the pilot's seat and took a few moments to familiarize himself with the controls of this ship. After learning to fly on the Millennium Falcon, every other ship seemed to be clear and easy to understand and control. It was a single pilot ship, but he could have flown a two-pilot ship solo. Han Solo had made sure of it. His father had wanted him to be ready for anything.

Everything looked like it was ready to fly, so Kylo Ren strapped himself in and began to start up the ship. In the midst of preparing the ship for a lightspeed jump, Kylo reached up and deactivated the tracking beacon. Then he ran his lightsaber through it for good measure.

He needed to find Rey, but he didn't want the entire First Order coming with him to take her and Luke out.

Luke.

He hadn't even thought about what he would say to Luke. He didn't know if Luke would even listen if he were to show up. Nothing he could say would make up for everything he had ruined. An entire generation of Jedi wiped out, a family torn apart, a galaxy out of order. Luke always taught forgiveness, and Kylo hoped that his uncle could find some left for him.

Kylo pulled the ship out of the hangar and flew into the night, away from Naboo, away from the First Order, away from Snoke. No ships stopped him as he left the system, and he jumped into hyperspace as soon as he had the room.

He had no idea where to find Luke and Rey, but he knew that he first needed to think of a plan. So he set course for Tatooine, just so he had a safe place to orbit while he thought of what to do.

The way he saw it, Kylo Ren had no options.

He had no way to find his uncle without going to the Resistance headquarters and begging for the map, which was more of a death wish than a plan. Even if his mother would see him (doubtful), she would never let him see the map.

He wasn't able to go back to Naboo (the thought disgusted him, anyways) without Snoke immediately snooping inside of his head and seeing light and color and everything that would leave Kylo a bloody corpse on the floor.

There was enough food and water on the ship to last for a considerable amount of time, so he could remain in orbit for as long as he needed, but he knew he'd go crazy if he didn't think of something to do.

Really, he was stuck. Planning had never been something he was good at. His mother always had a plan, and she always knew how to carry it out. His father never had a plan, but he always would think of something that would work out.

They would have told him what to do.

He set the ship to orbit and walked into the bunks to get some sleep.

In his dream, he saw Rey sinking into the ocean, unable to swim. He reached for her, but she was always just out of reach. He kept swimming deeper to help, but she was sinking too quickly. Still, he kept diving deeper, trying to use the Force to pull her close to him so they could make it to the surface, but she was swallowed by the dark sea. The dream was slowly stripped of color until he was just able to see a black abyss.

Ben Solo awoke gasping, and when he realized he could see the red on the ship's walls, he fell backwards in bed and stayed awake until he convinced himself that Rey was fine, that she wasn't dead at the bottom of an ocean, and then he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Tatooine was beautiful from orbit. It was almost a red color, but not quite. Ben had stared at it for hours, thinking of how the last two hopes of the galaxy had been raised there, a slave and a farm boy. Without Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker wouldn't exist. His family wouldn't exist. He wouldn't exist.

He pulled his blanket closer around him, having dragged it from his bed. He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to drink. Ben wanted a plan, but nothing came to him, so instead he watched Tatooine from the captain's seat.

Perhaps he could go and live on Tatooine and keep up the great Skywalker tradition of desert living.

He sighed to himself and stood, keeping his blanket wrapped around him, and decided to walk the length of the ship. Again. For the fourth time.

But someone was inside the ship with him, a man sitting in the passenger seat against the wall. Ben nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Shit!" he yelled.

The man rolled his eyes. He was a young man, handsome, wearing Jedi robes. He was lounging in his seat, seemingly comfortable. Something about him seemed familiar to Ben, but he wasn't quite able to place where he had seen this man before.

He wasn't all together there.

The man glowed.

"You picked up on your mother's vocabulary," the man said. Ben summoned his lightsaber from the bunks and activated it, pointing it directly at the man.

"Who the hell are you?" he growled. The man laughed, grinned. His face was warm, inviting.

"Of course, you wouldn't recognize me looking like this," the man said. And he changed, shadows on his face becoming more pronounced as a hood appeared to cover him. His face shifted, becoming more… mechanical. He seemed to have some control over the process, and he stopped the transformation when only half of his face was changed. One half of his face was a mess of wiring and metal, appearing melted and warped, and the other half remained the same, and Ben realized who he was looking at.

He was Darth Vader. He was Anakin Skywalker.

Ben nearly dropped his lightsaber without deactivating it.

"Good to see you too, grandson," Anakin said.

* * *

A/N: You all leave the nicest comments. Thanks you so much to everyone reading this story, it makes me so happy that you like it. Thank you to Kat for reading and editing and discussing all the small details of this with me.


	10. Emerald

Luke made Rey huddle under his blanket and cloak as he poured a large glass of water before her. Rey's mouth felt like a desert from the salt water, and she drank the whole thing without stopping, but she ended up coughing again, and Luke patted her back until she waved him off.

He would have been a great father.

"You stopped breathing and I thought…" Luke said, "I thought you were dead, Rey."

Rey's lungs were sore and pained, and every breath felt like torture, and her sobbing certainly hadn't made them any better. Tears were still running down her face, and she kept coughing up seawater.

"I can't swim," she rasped before breaking down coughing again. Luke nodded.

"I couldn't either," Luke said. "Desert planets don't have too many places to learn, so Leia taught me. I jumped in right after I saw you fall, but I couldn't find you and I thought I lost you. I'm so sorry, Rey. I should have been faster." Rey shook her head, still struggling to take deep breaths.

"You saved me," Rey said. Her voice was at a whisper, sounding like she went through packs of deathsticks every day. Luke refilled her glass of water and poured another one of warm tea.

"I saw him down there," Rey said, and Luke sighed. It wasn't a sigh of pity or disappointment, but more like a confirmation.

"I thought you would," Luke said. "Sometimes, when someone is in great pain or distress, they hallucinate their soulmate helping them. Leia and Han told me that. Han once said that he saw Leia more on his adventures through the galaxy than he did at home.

"So," Luke said, sitting across his table form Rey, "I'm assuming you know what a soulmate is. Which is odd, seeing that you didn't know what colors meant."

"I don't know when I learned what a soulmate was, but I just know. The colors, though, I never knew about," Rey said. Her voice was still raspy, but the tea was helping.

"Colors are the Force's way of letting you know that you've found the person you're destined to love for the rest of your life," Luke said. "Those who spent their whole lives doing nothing but good meet their soulmate and see color very early, but people who walk somewhere in between Light or Dark side of the Force wait for most of their lives to see color."

"In between?"

"Warriors, smugglers, scum. Han Solo was well into his thirties before he met Leia and saw color," Luke said, shrugging. "He didn't think he would ever see them. You'll have to forgive me, but because I was born seeing color, the only firsthand accounts of the soulmate process are from my sister and…."

"I understand," Rey said, not needing Luke to finish his sentence. She was surprised that he had even said Han's name twice that day, as in Rey's close to two months training with Luke, he rarely mentioned Han Solo. The wound was too fresh, she supposed.

"I know it's hard that your soulmate is my nephew," Luke said. "And I'm sorry. But I really do believe that there is still good in him. And perhaps the Force bonding you to him is a way of saying that he can be redeemed. You could be the one to bring him back to the Light side."

"I don't want to redeem him," Rey said, but the feeling in her chest—her bond, she was realizing—seemed to recoil at these words, and Rey knew she was lying. She still hated him after everything he did, but she agreed with Luke that there was Light still in him. The Force wanted her to save Kylo Ren, and she wanted him saved, but she didn't know if she wanted to be the one to save him.

She was busy with her own life. Rey never considered romance an option back on Jakku, and she certainly wouldn't consider it now, as she trained to become a Jedi and stop the very Order that her soulmate belonged to. She had a war to fight, to win, and she didn't want this soulmate junk to ruin anything.

Not happening.

Luke was silent for a moment, mulling over what to say next. Rey drank some tea and felt heat bloom through her body.

"Tell me what you're feeling right now," Luke said. Rey thought this over for a second.

"I'm confused. And angry, really angry. I hate him, Luke. I know you still think there's good in him, but I don't. But at the same time, I feel the connection between us. It's like this warm feeling in my chest that tells me he's alive. And it's not… unpleasant. But just the thought of being connected to Kylo Ren really makes me angry. He's not a good person, he's evil, and we hate each other. There's no reason for me to be connected to him like this, and I don't want to be. I don't want any of this," Rey said, hardly pausing to cough. Luke didn't say anything, only looked to the roof of his cave.

Rey felt something odd happen to her bond when she said she hated Kylo. I seemed to shake a little, like it was on the verge of collapsing. She brought a hand up to her chest.

She remembered her vision, where she heard his screams echo off stone walls, where she watched him break down. She thought of every dream of him, from the memory of seeing his face in color to glimpses of his face, his voice. Her bond flourished thinking on this, and she recoiled in disgust.

Something wasn't right. He was always coated in cuts and bruises in her dreams, always screaming or in agony. Rey never saw him in the setting she imagined for him—in the center of command or the First Order, ruthless and cruel, striking down every opponent in his way. But instead she saw nothing but suffering and pain on his part.

She had a bad feeling about all of this.

"Hate is the path to the Dark side, Rey. I personally don't follow the Jedi Code verbatim, but that part is incredibly important. You can feel however you want about my nephew, I won't tell you how to feel. But I want you to not to feel hatred. Disgust, dislike, disregard, yes. But not hate," Luke said.

"What am I supposed to do the next time I see him? Tell him that he's my soulmate and decide not to fight? Luke, we're on opposite sides of an ancient war," Rey said. "He's on the Dark side. He killed Han Solo. He's not going to come back to the Light. There's not a chance."

"My father was born to be on the Dark side. No matter how much he tried and fought it, he ended up in darkness. But his final act, the act that defined his life, was saving me. Ben might be in the Dark side now, Rey, but that doesn't mean he can change. Everyone can change. And with this bond you have, you could be the one to change him," Luke said. Rey set her jaw and stood up, dropping Luke's cloak to the ground.

"Kylo Ren is my soulmate, and I truly do not think that he can change, and it is not my responsibility to change him," Rey said, and she left the cave.

Rey dreamt again of Kylo Ren suffering. She saw him cry and scream, fight and lose, destroy and be destroyed. She saw his entire body riddled with bruises, so many that it was hard to tell what the actual color of his skin was. The scar on his face stood out to her, and when he shifted his eyes, she noticed that half of his face wasn't able to move normally. She did that to him.

Oddly, Rey felt a little sick thinking about it.

Lightning, bright as day, cackled and jumped around Kylo, but he was untouched. Rey heard the heavy sound of breathing, though it seemed robotic and pained. As the sound of breathing grew louder, the lighting and Kylo faded into blackness.

 _Rey._

She knew it was Obi Wan.

 _The truth isn't always pleasant,_ Obi Wan said. _And I'm sorry that you learned it this way._

 _I'm sorry that I had to learn it at all. The Force made a mistake_ , Rey said.

 _The Force doesn't make mistakes. It might make terrible and painful choices, but it never makes mistakes_ , Obi Wan said, sadness seeping through his voice. Rey wondered what he wasn't saying, what those terrible and painful choices were.

 _Then what do I do? Fight my soulmate? Forgive him for murder? I'm lost, and I haven't even processed all of this. We're in the middle of a war, I don't have time to figure this all out_ , Rey replied.

 _You must train for now, and then when you see him next, you will know what to do. I cannot tell you which choice you should make, but I do know that you will make the right one. There are more than two choices, Rey, and you will see which path you should take_ , Obi Wan said. _The war of good versus evil could very well depend on what you do_.

 _That's comforting,_ Rey said. As if she already didn't have enough weight on her shoulders.

 _The same duty once fell to me, with another Skywalker. To this day I still don't know if I made the right choice for the galaxy,_ Obi Wan sighed, _but I know that I made the choice that I felt was right. And I know that when the time comes, you will make the choice that you feel is right, and that will be enough_. _It will be enough, Rey._

Breakfast was silent the next morning. Luke cooked again, and Rey ate every bit of food he put on her plate. She always did. Luke refilled her plate before she asked for another serving. He always did. Frankly, the amount of food Luke gave Rey still stunned her. She couldn't remember a single day in her life where she had eaten as much.

"The color of the sky is blue," Luke said suddenly, and Rey's chest seemed to open. Her favorite color, the one she always hoped to one day put a name to, was _blue_. Like 'red', it didn't seem to be a real word, but something about it clicked when she let her eyes meet Luke's, and she knew that Luke Skywalker had blue eyes. The sky above her head shone blue. The ocean that nearly swallowed her was blue.

"Thank you," Rey said, and Luke stood up, walked around the fire, and sat directly across from Rey.

"I'm sorry about yesterday. I could have been much nicer, much calmer, more sensitive. I have never been in the situation you're in, so I don't know how stressful or frightening this could be, but that's not an excuse," Luke said. "It is not your responsibility to redeem my nephew, and I'm sorry that I ever implied that. Forgive me, please. I didn't mean to upset you, and I'm incredibly sorry that I did."

Rey stared at Luke for a long moment, her eyes not leaving his. And then she lunged forward and hugged Luke. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her back, not saying anything.

Rey hardly hugged people back in Jakku. She only hugged the small children who were learning to scavenge, and she would only do that when she found one in the carcass of a ship, crying and lost. But hugging, which she learned with Finn, was nice. She liked hugging.

"I have no idea what to do," Rey admitted, thinking about the cryptic advice Obi Wan had given her, the pull in her chest, and the image of Kylo Ren's bruised and broken body. Something was wrong. Something horribly wrong was happening to her soulmate, but she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do about anything.

"Honestly, I don't know either. But we will figure this all out together. I promise," Luke said, squeezing Rey tighter.

Luke would have been a perfect father.


	11. Copper

He remembered the last time he had seen his grandfather. Han Solo had snuck away the night before to go on some stupid adventure again, and Leia stopped by with Luke at his academy to see where her husband was. When Luke told her that Han hadn't come by, Leia stormed back to her ship, yelling, only stopping briefly to complain that Ben's _no good nerf-herding filth-smuggling_ father had disappeared in the middle of the night again, to say that she loved her son, to kiss him on the forehead.

Ben tried as hard as he could to peacefully meditate that night, but he was distracted by the surge of anger he felt when he thought about his father running away from his responsibilities and family. He was so _angry_ thinking about his mother—his brave, determined mother—waking up to find her husband gone again, not knowing where he was. And when Ben had opened his eyes, Vader stood before him.

It was the respirator that gave him away. Leia always said that the sound of his breathing haunted her nightmares for years, and Luke told his younglings that there was no sound like his father's pained breathing.

Vader's face was corrupted, overrun by machinery and metal. He stood before Ben, cloaked in an inky black incredibly close to the darkness of space, and Ben felt wonder, not fear, as he looked up at his grandfather.

That was the night he became Kylo Ren. Darth Vader filled his head with promises of power and strength, told him to give in to Snoke's whispering voice, convinced him to betray Luke.

That was a decade ago, maybe more.

"We weren't at our best when we last saw each other," Anakin said, allowing his face to shift back to that of a man. Ben still stood before him, cold lightsaber at his feet, atop the pooled up blanket he dropped in surprise. Anakin sat casually, looking as if this was a common meeting.

"You filled my head with lies," Ben said. "You told me to give in to the Darkness." Anakin showed no reaction. None.

"I can't control my inner balance of Dark and Light, Ben," Anakin said. "I appeared to you as Vader because of what you were feeling."

"Sounds like a half-assed excuse," Ben said, and Anakin smiled. This filled Ben with the overwhelming urge to punch a ghost.

"You really take after your mother," Anakin said. "She said the same thing to me before I tried explaining my imbalance with the Force."

Never in his life could Ben remember Leia speaking to her father. She would speak of him, always with a tone of disgust, anger, bitterness. During the days of Jedi training, Ben remembered his uncle mentioning stories of Jedi past that he learned from his father's ghost. Feeling that this was going to turn into a very long conversation, Ben took a chair opposite Anakin.

"Then explain, and I don't have the patience to sit here all day, grandfather," Ben said.

"You have nowhere to go, and without my help, you'll never find Luke and Rey," Anakin said, and Ben's blood froze in his veins.

Anakin _knew_ where they were. His grandfather could get him there. Anakin was smirking now, evidently aware of Ben's revelation.

Rey and Luke were just within reach. He wouldn't have to hunt the galaxy while hiding form the First Order or live out his years as a hermit. All Anakin had to do was tell him where they were, and he could be there within a few hours.

Anger shot through Ben.

"Where were you when I begged for you to help me when I was on Naboo? I pleaded every night for you to appear to me and guide me, and I was met with silence. I was lost and afraid and you didn't do so much as appear. Where was your help when I needed it most?" Ben spat.

"Allow me to explain myself, and then I will help you. Just know that the time you most needed my help was not then, and it is not now either," Anakin said, and Ben felt that overwhelming urge to fight a ghost rise inside of him again.

Leia didn't speak to Anakin—at least, when Ben was younger, she didn't—and he couldn't blame her. His grandfather's voice held no emotion when he spoke, his face always seemed careless and boyish, he seemed to disregard whomever he spoke to. Ben found this irritating, which made him assume that Leia found it infuriating.

"Explain. I don't want to waste time," Ben growled, and Anakin rolled his eyes.

"You have plenty of time. They aren't going anywhere, and besides, they're a bit busy at the moment," Anakin said.

"How do you know, are you omnipotent?" Ben snarked.

"No, I'm just aware of how hard Jedi training is when you take it seriously," Anakin said, and Ben opened his mouth to protest the jab, but Anakin continued to speak.

"Understand, Ben, that I am not a Jedi. Luke calls me a Jedi, I was trained as a Jedi, and I died a Jedi, but the fact remains that I was born into the Dark side, and that nothing I ever did could pull me back from it.

"I did… awful things in my life. I slaughtered villages, murdered children, brought the galaxy to its knees, and I tortured and harmed my own children," Anakin said.

"But I also did some good deeds. I loved your grandmother; I served as a Jedi for many years, fighting for the Light side of the Force; I sacrificed my life to kill Emperor Palpatine and save my son, which helped bring balance to the Force. Or, at least, I thought it did.

"I live off of the energy that flows through every living being, if the energy is more Dark than Light, it can change who I am. The Skywalker family, the only people I appear to, walks completely on the Light side, but in you were so frightened and angry and wrapped in the Dark side that you inherited from me that I changed and appeared to you as Darth Vader," Anakin said. Ben's head was spinning.

"That is why I didn't appear to you on Naboo. You were filled with such anger and fear that I feared my appearance would cause a shift into Vader once more, and that would have done much more harm than good," Anakin said. Ben squeezed his hands into fists as he recalled the night he destroyed his grandfather's helmet, his screams echoing off the stone walls as he destroyed everything in his chambers. His anger, his fear, his inner conflict tearing him apart.

"Why is this relevant to my finding Luke and Rey?" Ben asked, and Anakin looked away, out of the cockpit's viewing port at Tatooine. Ben couldn't imagine what he felt for the planet— was it hatred, nostalgia, connection, revulsion? Perhaps what Anakin felt for Tatooine was similar to what Ben felt for the Falcon—a sense of _home_ with disgust mingled in.

"You must know, Ben, that I made worse mistakes than you did. I might not have killed my father, but I did kill my wife, my best friend, and dozens of children. I didn't reveal the existence of a new generation of Jedi, but I was instrumental in the plan to ensure there would be no Jedi. I tortured my daughter and disfigured my son. I killed countless people. I am by every definition, a monster.

"And yet, I died a Jedi. I made my choice, and though I was born to be part of the Dark side—because no matter what I did or what I say, I belong there—I walk as close to the Light as I can. And that means you are entirely capable of doing the same," Anakin said, leaning forward. Ben struggled to meet his grandfather's gaze and instead looked at a point on the wall just above his shoulder.

"And what if I'm not meant to walk the Light? What if I'm so far gone that there is no Light left in me?" Ben said, feeling his voice shake. What he had done—everything he had done- was disgusting, heinous, evil.

How could he ever be forgiven?

"There is Light in you, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see in color," Anakin said. "You have a soulmate, Ben, and if you were as far gone in the Dark as you thought, you wouldn't have her. That should tell you enough. And you do need to find her and Luke."

"Then tell me where they are," Ben said, pleading tone returning to his voice. Anakin looked troubled for a second. And that was the face that solidified every story Luke told. That was the face of a Jedi Knight who destroyed ships, fought in the Clone Wars, and nearly became one of the youngest to sit on the Jedi Council had he not pledged his allegiance to the Sith. That was the face of a legend.

"I need… I need to keep my children safe, Ben. I need to keep the galaxy's last hope safe. I believe that you aren't part of the First Order, but I need you to prove to me that you are looking for Luke without any intention from the Dark side," Anakin said. "Just tell me something, anything, to make me believe that you aren't running off to kill your uncle and soulmate, which you begged me to help with so many times. I want to believe you, so make me."

Ben fought to not let anger roll off of him in waves. Was his flight not enough? Was the fact that his grandfather didn't appear as Darth Vader not enough? All of the breakdowns, tantrums, sleepless nights, were they not enough? Everything he had done since escaping Starkiller Base had to do with his being so Light that he saw in color. Because of Rey.

Rey.

"I decided to leave because I felt something happen to Rey," Ben said. "All of the color left my vision, and I thought she was dead, grandfather. I thought I had lost my soulmate, and it felt like everything had collapsed around me, and I couldn't even think anything aside from the fact that she could have been dead, and I decided to leave the moment the colors returned.

"I need to find her. I can't fight it anymore: she is my soulmate, and I need to be with her. I need to know that she is safe. Grandfather, please. Tell me how to find her," Ben said, outright begging. Anakin looked at him, his eyes cool and cutting. Leia's eyes shone the same way, giving the impression that she was always thinking five steps ahead of you.

"They're on Ahch-To," Anakin said. "When you come close to orbit, you'll know where they are on the planet if you search the Force. I will let Leia know that we spoke, but I will not say anything to Luke until after you've arrived."

"Thank you," Ben said, and then added, "Please don't say anything about my having a soulmate."

"Embarrassed?"

"I still need to figure out what to do with myself, and I do not need any other people telling me what to do or feel," Ben said. He couldn't bear to imagine Leia sending him a comm to tell him how great it was that he could see in color, or Luke sitting him down for a man-to-man chat, or even Chewbacca lecturing him on what to do about a soulmate.

Worse, he couldn't even think of Rey finding out. Of everything turning further on its head than it already was. No, he didn't need to have the whole galaxy know that Rey was his soulmate. He told Anakin—and that was enough.

"Suit yourself," Anakin said, shrugging. His voice had fallen flat again. "But as your grandfather, I advise you to tell her in spite of every risk." Ben rolled his eyes at the thought.

"Let me focus on proving to her that I'm not out to kill her, and then I'll worry about the soulmate bond," Ben said. Anakin nodded and looked out onto Tatooine again. Ben studied his profile for a moment, thinking of how this ghost before him was that of the galaxy's hero and villain. Anakin Skywalker knew what it meant to be torn apart from within, and for the first time in over a decade, Ben felt a connection to his family.

"Now, go find those two, and get away from Tatooine. I do truly hate this planet—its people and wastelands and sand. Terrible, terrible place," Anakin said. He smiled at his grandson and allowed himself to fade into the wall until there was no trace of him left.


	12. Lilac

Rey wasn't a good artist, but she still sketched her designs of her lightsaber carefully, with Luke planning their quest to Ilum to find her a Kyber crystal. Or two. Rey still needed to figure out if a double blade would need two separate crystals or one large one. She supposed that two would make sense from a mechanical point of view, seeing that she was designing a double bladed lightsaber that was able to detach into two smaller blades should she need to fight in tighter spaces.

For reference, she tried to wield both of Luke's lightsabers while they were tied together. Luke stood very far away as Rey spun the makeshift double blade, making notes on how her own would be designed. Longer in the middle to imitate the way she held her staff with one distinct design so the lightsaber was uniform and didn't feel like two different blades shoved together.

Luke told her that she couldn't exactly control the color of her lightsaber because the Kyber crystals would change color for her, but he taught her the names of every color he could think of the crystals becoming.

Blue, the color of the sky and ocean.

Green, the color of grass and Luke's self-made lightsaber.

Purple, the color of a twilight sky and bruises.

Yellow, the color of sunshine and the tiny flowers that grew near her cave.

Red, the color of blood and Kylo Ren's lightsaber.

He told her the name every color that could be found on the island, and then he told her of colors that she had seen. The orange flight suit Poe Dameron wore, the golden sunsets she would watch on Jakku, the pink of sunburnt skin. With every name, Rey felt a power awaken inside of her.

She had slept after her fight and apology from Luke yesterday and woken up to the news that she needed to design her lightsaber. Two days ago, Rey learned of her connection to Kylo Ren, how the feeling in her chest was connected directly to him. The thought of being so intimately connected to someone was something that would take a while to get used to, especially when she would feel _something_ and not know what it meant.

Right then, standing proudly in the grass underneath a cloudy sky, she felt a feeling erupt in her chest, one that made her drop Luke's lightsabers in the grass.

Kylo Ren was close. Terribly close.

As Rey realized it, she looked to the sky just in time to see his ship appear through the clouds and land on the far side of the island.

In the few moments it took for Rey to register this, she couldn't move. Every part of her mind was focused on the knowledge that her soulmate was so close to her that she could practically feel him. He had found them, he had somehow found where Rey and Luke were.

Rey felt dizzy between the sudden rush of adrenaline entering her bloodstream, the knowledge that Kylo Ren was on the island, the scorching anger that overtook her as she understood _Kylo Ren_ was there to hunt Luke and her down, and the feeling of warmth spreading through her body as she realized her _soulmate_ was nearby.

She didn't linger on the feeling of warmth, instead dropping Luke's lightsabers and taking her staff from the nearby rock she had propped it on and running toward the ship. Her combat skills with a lightsaber were still unimpressive compared to the years Kylo Ren had spent on his own, and she would rather use her staff if she was going to catch him off guard. Luke wasn't far behind, untying his lightsaber's as he ran. Rey ran faster than she ever had, jumping over rocks and boulders before practically hurling herself down the hill toward the sleek First Order ship Kylo Ren was emerging from.

He was there. Not in a dream or a vision or a hallucination. No, Kylo Ren was there, only a few yards away from Rey, in the flesh. Her enemy, her soulmate, was standing before her unaware of her hammering heart and panicked breathing.

Rey almost felt something close to shock, but her primary reaction was that he was there to kill her and Luke or drag them back to Snoke or torture them for information.

And she couldn't let that happen, soulmate or not.

He looked around for a moment, observing the island, before he noticed Rey running full force at him, and by the time he noticed her, she was close enough that she could hit him. And so she did, swinging her staff at his face before he could do so much as get one word out. He didn't wear his helmet, and he took the full force of the staff to his nose.

Kylo Ren hissed and clutched his nose as Rey knocked his legs out from under him, but when he landed on the ground, he managed to kick Rey's legs out, and she took fell, falling backwards. Kylo lunged forward to pin her down, but Rey rolled before he put his full weight on her and instead pinned _him_ down, staff at his throat.

Even with blood running from his nose and an ugly scar marring his face, Rey still felt unsettled at his appearance when she looked at him. Even then, nothing about him screamed villain or evil, and when Rey looked, she felt her chest swell and the colors around her become brighter, more intense.

 _Soulmate._

A brief moment passed between them where their eyes met, and Rey felt like she was tethered to him, like they were connected down to their bones. Like she was made for him. With her legs on either side of his chest, Rey became aware that their skin was only separated by a few layers of clothing, and her skin tingled at the thought.

There he was: the monster who killed his own father and nearly killed Rey, too. A traitor, a murderer, a monster.

But still, he was her soulmate. He appeared to her when she was dying and every night in her dreams. And he was with her in real life, but only to kill her and Luke. And he was really with her, right below her, close enough that Rey could hear the gasping noises he made.

She wanted to break every part of his face until she didn't look at him and remember how he looked below the waves when she drowned. He stared at her, in spite of her choking him beneath her, dark brown eyes scanning her face and growing wide. Rey pressed her weight down harder on the staff, hearing Kylo let out a choked sound before freeing his left hand, reaching up, and punching her cheek.

Rey rolled off from the force of impact, and she heard Kylo take deep breaths from next to her. She clutched the right side of her face, which pulsed from where his fist had landed, as he grabbed her and rolled so she was pinned down. Rey kicked him in the back though, and he sat straight up, and Rey took that opportunity to throw a punch, but Kylo grabbed her fist and twisted it.

"Missed me?" Kylo Ren said, and Rey felt rage like no other run through her body.

Rey snarled and punched him in his right cheek, hard enough that his head twisted to the side, and Kylo punched her in the eye. Rey noticed the lightsaber hanging from his belt and snatched it, ready to hit Kylo without even turning it on. She aimed for his face, but he slapped it out of her hand and into the grass behind them.

The pair was so absorbed in hand-to-hand combat that neither thought to call the lightsaber back by using the Force.

Rey rolled and managed to get him off of her, only to see stars as an elbow collided with her skull. She returned the favor when her vision cleared and he was above her. Kylo groaned and fell to the side, now clutching his head just as she clutched hers.

"ENOUGH," Luke roared, striding toward them. Maybe Rey would have fought more if her head hadn't been pounding and her face didn't sting. Next to her, Kylo Ren was in a similar stare.

Her soulmate indeed.

Rey thought about what a wonderful reunion it was, and that the Force _still_ wasn't mistaken in making Kylo Ren her soulmate.

"Enough. We all need to talk NOW," Luke said, and Rey almost felt frightened by the anger in his voice. She felt like a child who had been caught in another scavenger's area going through their scraps. Rey struggled to her feet, her heart and head still pounding, and she tried not to look at Kylo Ren as they followed Luke back to his cave.

"What are you doing here?" Luke asked. Kylo Ren and Rey were sitting down (across the cave from each other), but Luke still stood, looking down at the pair as if they were children. Rey was still holding her head, though the pain had considerably died down in the walk to the cave. She acutely felt Kylo's presence to her right, and she felt her skin crawling from it.

Was it so intense to be near your soulmate all the time?

Kylo Ren let the blood from his broken nose run down his face, though it had mostly dried by then. The combination of a swollen nose and large facial scar certainly looked like they hurt, but he scowled through them to look at his uncle. Rey felt a sense of pride that she delivered both of the blows, but she also couldn't help but feel a bit of guilt that she did that to her soulmate.

"I came to find you," Kylo Ren said, a bit awkwardly because of his nose.

"Obviously," Rey said, rolling her eyes. Kylo Ren glared at her from the corner of his eye, and she looked away. Just because he was her soulmate and Luke hadn't decided to punish him yet didn't mean that Rey had to be _nice_ to this asshole.

"Rey," Luke scolded, and she shrugged in resignation.

"I defected from the First Order and came in search of you. The Light within me, the Light you always saw, is stronger than the Dark, and I now realize that. I came to complete my Jedi training and restore order to the Force," Kylo Ren said.

How _dare_ he?! Rey was floored by his insistence that he was Light, that he wanted to restore the order he had destroyed. Rey felt herself practically tremble in her rage.

"Where was that Light in you when you kidnapped me and interrogated me and invaded my mind? Where was it when Snoke gave the order to use Starkiller base? Where was it when your father wanted to bring you home? When he wanted to help you stop hurting? Where was it then?!" Rey yelled, moving closer to him like an animal ready to strike. By the time she was done talking, she stood directly above him, looking down on him, anger rolling off in waves.

Kylo Ren looked at his uncle, and Rey followed his gaze to see something unspoken pass between the two.

"Rey, I need to speak with my nephew privately," Luke said, not even looking away from Kylo Ren. There was something in his voice—suspicion, shock, caution—that Rey couldn't put her finger on.

"Excuse me?!" Rey exclaimed, and Luke fixed his gaze on her, but gone was any paternal care. His stare was that of Luke Skywalker, the Last Jedi, the stuff legends were made out of. And in spite of feeling very small in that moment, Rey puffed her chest out and stood her ground.

"I need to speak with him, and I can't do that with you jumping at his throat anytime he says anything. You need to leave now, and I promise I will fill you in later on everything," Luke said.

Rey looked at Luke, her gaze half rejected half angry. She was his student, and she was Kylo Ren's soulmate. She had every right to sit in that cave and hear the proceedings, but instead she was shunned. And then she looked down at Kylo Ren, her face full of nothing but anger, and she stormed out of the cave, practically screaming through closed teeth.

* * *

A/N: Thank you all for reading this far, and I hope you're ready for everything to get wild. Thank you all for the comments and favorites and subscriptions, they all mean so much to me. Thank you to Kat for proofreading and editing everything I write. For the record, for the fight, I looked at the Max and Furiosa fight from Fury Road, the Charles and Erik fight from First Class, and a little bit of the Obi Wan and Anakin fight from Revenge of the Sith.


	13. Bronze

"I need to know how you got here," Luke the moment Rey's footsteps faded away. His stare focused entirely on Ben, so intense that Ben began to squirm. He didn't know what he expected when he arrived, but fighting Rey and being interrogated by Luke wasn't it.

Though, he wondered why he could have ever thought differently.

He couldn't breathe through his nose and his head still pounded, but he supposed that it could have been much worse. He could be dead, or with another scar crisscrossing his face courtesy of his soulmate.

To see her running, alive, unharmed, made Ben feel something he hadn't felt in a very long time, so long that he couldn't pinpoint it. Relief, hope, security? No matter what, she was alive, and lively enough to break his nose within seconds of seeing him.

"Anakin," Ben said, and Luke's eyes widened in anger. Luke's anger was something that Ben rarely saw in childhood. Leia's anger made her incredibly vocal and reckless, but Luke's anger was quiet and deadly. In spite of the few instances of seeing it, Ben remembered it very clearly and tried to sit further back in his seat.

"I'm going to have a long talk with my father later," Luke hissed. Ben fought the urge to tell his uncle that any talk with Anakin seemed to be a long talk, as the current situation seemed to be far too serious to lighten with a snide comment.

He hadn't seen his uncle in years and years, and looking at Luke's weathered face made Ben feel guilt so heavy that he was nearly crushed. He ruined Luke's life by betraying him and allowing dozens of children to die. He abandoned the Light that Luke had tried so hard to teach him.

He had killed Han Solo, Luke's dearest friend.

"Luke, I'm sorry," Ben said. And he meant it. For the first time in so long, he meant his apology. "I have no excuse for what I did, and I am begging you for forgiveness."

Luke didn't say anything, which was so unlike the Luke Ben remembered. He remembered his uncle as a kind man who always burst with joy and laughter, ready to tell stories and amuse the students at his school. This Luke, the one Ben helped create, was cold and silent. He looked as if he had aged faster than he should have, and Ben knew that it was entirely his fault.

"I felt your father die," Luke said. Ben's chest seemed to shatter, and tears threatened to spill over. "I felt the second it happened, and it felt like something was torn right out of me. But the worst part, Ben, is that I knew it was you. I knew you had done it, that you had given in to the Dark side."

Ben didn't say anything for fear of crying, so he stared at the floor. If Luke felt it, then there was no doubt Leia had felt it, too. Leia and Han were soulmates, so even if she hadn't felt it, she had known from the moment her colors went out.

The idea of his mother in a colorless world was unthinkable, yet Ben had done that to her. He ruined her life. He ruined Luke's life.

He ruined everything.

But still, he forced his voice to stay steady.

"I felt him die, too. And it's been tearing me apart ever since. I thought that by following Snoke's orders I would find peace, but instead I became more torn," Ben said. Luke hummed, another tic that Luke must have picked up as a hermit, because all of Ben's memories were filled with a Luke who was never quiet ever. Luke who would fill silences with dumb comments and jokes and made sure that his school for the Jedi was always full of laughter.

"Why did you leave?" Luke said flatly.

"The Light in me won," Ben said, jumping away from the truth, the truth about Rey, without even thinking. Anakin knew, and Anakin was one more person than Ben wanted knowing in the first place. Luke let out a humorless laugh.

"I'm sure it did, but we both know that it didn't win just because you felt torn apart. Even when you were a child, you were torn apart, but the Dark won then. So what made it different this time?" Luke said, every word like a punch. Ben knew he was a smart man, but after lying for most of his life, Ben thought that maybe he had finally gotten good enough to deceive Luke.

"I don't think I need to tell you," Ben said, trying to sound nonchalant. Luke almost smirked, but instead he walked right up to Ben so he towered over his nephew and looked down. Ben remembered watching Luke fight the Knights of Ren when Snoke sent them in for the massacre, and he knew that Luke was more than met the eye.

"You do, though. Because I could comm the Resistance right now and subdue you until then. And I would bet that Rey is looking at your ship right now, meaning you can't escape on it. You have no options, Ben. Right now, you need to tell why you decided to turn up after killing your father. Don't tell me that the Light won, because even though I feel the Light in you, I know you are hiding something from me. Now I have a student who is the galaxy's last hope, and I will not endanger her or my own life," Luke said.

Ben felt like he was five years old and was caught toying with his mother's lightsaber. He remained silent.

"You killed your father and you actually think that I would let you come to me without an explanation? Ben, I don't care how much Light is in you—you need to give me a reason to let you stay," Luke said, this time his voice forceful. Ben would have laughed at the similarity to Anakin had he not been panicking.

He braced himself for cold fingers going through his mind, searching for answers, pulling out secrets in the most painful way. Ben threw up mental walls around anything regarding Rey and readied himself for a painful interrogation.

But nothing happened. Looking up, Ben saw Luke standing still, waiting for his nephew to speak. He didn't have his eyes closed in concentration, trying to break into Ben's thoughts. No, his uncle would never. It wasn't the way of the Jedi, and it certainly wasn't the way of Luke Skywalker.

Ben had forgotten what a confession felt like without the use of force. And that caused him to break. He looked into his own mind and brought out the feelings he had refused to acknowledge aloud for months: his guilt.

"My earliest memory is of my father making repairs to the Falcon while my mother watched. My first word was 'Han'. He taught me how to walk and fly ships and identify whole star systems by sight. Han Solo was your best friend, but he was my father, and," Ben coughed for a moment, feeling his throat grow tight, "And I regret what I did. It doesn't matter if you forgive me, because I will never forgive myself. Because he was my father, and I miss him."

It's odd that the truth took a weight off of his shoulders. Ben buried his face in hands and took a deep breath. The memories he described were real, so real that Ben remembered every detail. He had locked them away when he became Kylo Ren, so that he would become stronger by hiding his past.

But Ben Solo was done hiding.

Luke stared at him intensely. Sat next to him. Hummed for a moment. Then slung his arm around his nephew's shoulder.

"There are things in life that can't be forgiven. Your grandfather did unspeakable things, I abandoned the galaxy most when it needed me, and you know what you've done. But what separates us from the Dark side is our guilt. Sith do not feel guilt for what they do, but we do. We recognize that we made a mistake we can never fix, and that what shows that there is Light in us," Luke said. "I don't forgive you for what you've done, but that doesn't mean that I don't love you. And it doesn't mean that I feel like you can't move forward."

The anxiety in Ben's body seemed to evaporate, and he sighed in relief.

"You can stay here and train. You can learn how to be part of the Light side again. You can work through your inner conflict with my help. I need to know what finally made you seek me out," Luke said, and Ben could hear that it was just a question. A simple question.

And, as Ben did with several decisions recently, he decided to tell the truth before he could think his way out of it.

"I can see color, Luke," Ben said. "I can see color because of Rey."

Luke stiffened beside him, and Ben heard his uncle take a sharp breath.

"You're joking," Luke said, and Ben grinned from the good half of his face.

"I'm not. And something happened to her, right? A few days ago?" Ben said. He looked to his uncle, and Luke nodded, his eyes large and shocked. "The colors, they went out. And I decided to find her."

Luke's eyes remained huge and he looked to the floor. Ben didn't blame him—it was a huge shock. Especially after watching their fight from earlier. Ben didn't feel entirely bad about elbowing her because his nose was damn well broken, but he did feel bad about fighting back in the first place.

"Are you planning on telling her?" Luke said, eyes still faraway.

That was the part Ben dreaded. The idea of telling Rey that she was his soulmate. Han and Leia took years to say it, and for good reason, too.

Unrequited soulmate bonds were a nightmare. They weren't entirely common, but they weren't rare enough to put the fear out of a person's mind when they first saw color. To see color and not have it returned… Ben couldn't imagine.

And Ben wasn't ready to open the box regarding Rey and find out. No, he wanted to remain ignorant about it.

He was terrified about it.

"No," Ben said. "At least, not for a while. I need to focus on anything but soulmates for now, to keep a clear head, and to win this war. You can't tell her, Luke."

"I won't," Luke agreed. "But don't expect her to be nice to you even if you're nothing but kind." Ben raised his eyebrows and pointed to his broken nose.

"I don't expect her to be nice," Ben said. "And I won't be kind. I don't know how to be kind anymore." Luke hummed again and patted his nephew on the back.

"That's one more thing I'll have to teach you about," Luke said. Ben smiled and stood up with his uncle. It felt odd to be next to him after so many years, but at the same time, it felt like home. Luke looked at his nephew, and Ben was sure that blue was the color of Luke's eyes. Leia had complained at family gatherings that she and Luke looked nothing alike, and that she should have inherited blue eyes too. Han would always smirk and say that he was good-looking enough for the both of them, and Leia would roll her eyes, but she would be smiling. Ben would cling to his father's leg, laughing along with the adults.

"I have to tell Rey that you're going to stay. If you want, you can stand behind me in case she disagrees with my decision," Luke said, and Ben almost laughed, but Luke added, "Your face can't take much more damage from her, so I'd be careful if I were you."

* * *

A/N: Thank you all so much for the comments, I read every one of them and and so happy when they arrive in my inbox. Chapters are now going to start taking a bit longer because they're about to become a bit longer. But they're worth it, I promise.


	14. Indigo

Luke seemed to be waking up earlier and earlier to catch Rey before she went running in the mornings.

Perhaps he thought she was sneaking off to kill Kylo, who slept in a cave way past Luke's.

Really, Rey just liked the sunrise and all of its colors.

The colors became more vibrant from the moment Kylo Ren set foot on the island, and Rey loved them so much that she was almost thankful that Kylo arrived. Everything from the green of the grass to the blue of the ocean was intensified, revealing new shades that Rey eagerly observed. She desperately hoped that her lightsaber would be a color she loved. Blue, hopefully. Maybe a gold one if she was lucky.

When she passed Kylo's cave, she felt the bond in her chest pull, urging her to go to him. She ignored it every morning and ran as fast as she could past him cave, pretending like the bond wasn't physically hurting her as she did.

The days passed in a stable routine. Rey would run with Luke watching from his cliff outpost, pretending to meditate. Breakfast would be eaten around the firepit by Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren about an hour after sunrise. The sight of Kylo Ren over breakfast every morning was almost enough to make Rey start eating in her cave, but Luke insisted that she at least try to be civil.

Key word: try.

This resulted in Rey sitting in a sullen silence most every morning, only responding with one word answers when Luke would talk to her and glares when Kylo Ren would say something. The latter was rare, but he did try to reach out once or twice to her during training.

She was happy she broke his nose, otherwise she surely would have tried to do it then, but Luke was ready to step in and break up any fights between his students. He did it fairly often, as Rey snapped on Kylo fairly often. She might not be allowed to fight him, but usually she could get a few good insults in before Luke would cut her off.

Rey discovered, much to her delight, that Kylo was not a morning person in the slightest, and she took to making as much noise as she could without Luke scolding her. He always growled but held himself back from actually retaliating.

Then came morning meditation, which was made more difficult for Rey by the knowledge that Kylo was only a few feet away, on Luke's left side. That fact made her stomach twist for the entire time she was supposed to meditate, and she wished that Luke would let her meditate on her own, but _no_ , he had to keep an eye on her to make sure his nephew wasn't injured or killed. So instead she was forced to sit through meditation sessions where the only thing she could focus on was the knowledge that her soulmate was sitting so close.

Unfortunately, Kylo became an excellent meditator after about a week, though she would have never guessed it. Luke even told her once that she should strive to find the focus his nephew had during their sessions. Rey almost broke Kylo's nose again when he smirked at her from behind Luke.

They would spar next, and Rey focused every ounce of her anger into her matches with Kylo.

Luke set rules for the pair which boiled down to: _don't use the Force_. He wanted their fights to be clean, fair fights between two Jedi of equal standing.

Rey almost spit when he referred to Kylo as a Jedi.

Using the Force wasn't the only way to make a fight dirty. In their first match, Rey knocked Kylo to the ground with a well-placed kick to the chest. In the second, she kicked his knee out from under him. By the third, Kylo began adapting to anticipate her attacks, though he never hit her back. She could tell it killed him to not seriously fight her, but she loved watching him grit his teeth and brush the dust off of himself without trying to run her through.

Luke didn't say a word about Rey's dirty fighting. In fact, he seemed to enjoy watching their sparring matches. Rey grudgingly admitted to herself that she enjoyed them, too. Kylo seemed to enjoy them well enough if his lack of complaint or insult was an indication.

In the rare case of a clean fight, the winner was a toss-up. On some afternoons, Rey would disarm Kylo after a grueling duel that took them across the island. These duels reminded her of their first—before she knew about their bond; before she wasn't hyperaware of close she was to Kylo's bare skin, separated by only the thin shirts they wore for training; before she knew that the color of his eyes were brown. On those days, the days she won, her bond seemed to pull tighter toward her soulmate, and she fought twice as hard because of it.

However, there were some days when Kylo knocked the lightsaber out of her hand and managed to back her against a cliff or rock and force her to admit defeat. Those days, Kylo would smile, with a small bit of humor and pride, and Rey something tug at her chest, and it made her want to summon her lightsaber and resume the duel. She expected his fighting style to still be cruel, ruthless, cold, but instead she realized that he had changed, and his style was now varied, calculated, and collected. Perhaps she wasn't the only one who had been training.

After sparring, Luke would wander off on his own for a few hours and leave Rey to her own devices—or at least, he did before Kylo Ren arrived. Now, Luke sat on the highest cliff for several hours, watching his two students avoid each other as best they could. Try as they might, their island was small, and they frequently ended up around each other.

"Your skills have improved since we last fought," Kylo said one day as Rey prepared to climb the face of the very same cliff she had fallen from. Rey kept her face blank and didn't look at him. His voice alone was enough to spark rage inside of her, and she couldn't pick a fight with him while Luke was ready to break it up.

"I do not want to speak with you," Rey said, hoping the simple statement would be enough to drive him away. Instead, she heard him come closer to the cliff. Rey's hand inched toward her lightsaber. If he started the duel, she would have no problem carrying it on. In fact, she would be more than happy to do so.

"You still use my family's lightsaber," Kylo remarked.

"And you still use that piece of junk you call a blade," Rey said. She could almost see his face twisting in anger, his hand moving toward his lightsaber, his body tensing for a duel. And she wanted it, she wanted to fight him with everything she could, without Luke separating them when things got too messy.

"That will change after our journey to Ilum," Kylo said, biting his words. At this, Rey finally turned, only to be inches away from her soulmate's snarling face. She snarled right back, noticing that he seemed to be stooping down to compensate for their height difference, just so they could be in each other's faces.

"You will not be joining us to Ilum," Rey said. She didn't realize how much Force she wove into her voice until the words left her mouth and Kylo's pupils seemed to dilate for a moment. Luke _did_ tell her, once, that mind tricks were a Kenobi specialty.

"I will not… Don't do that," Kylo said, his voice sharpening when he shook off the mind trick.

"Then leave me alone," Rey said, turning back to the cliff.

"My uncle wants me to be… tolerable," Kylo said, and Rey knew that it truly pained him to say that.

 _Good_.

"If you want to be tolerable, then leave me alone. Pretend that I don't exist. It will save you a lot of frustration," Rey said. Her bond ached, and wanted to rip the damned thing out of her soul. She didn't want a soulmate and she didn't want Kylo Ren.

He made the mistake of taking one step closer. Rey didn't hesitate in grabbing the lightsaber at her hip and kicking off the cliff to land behind Kylo. His blade was at the ready before she even hit the ground, and she gladly dove into the duel.

It was like being back on Starkiller Base. Adrenaline hummed through her veins and her only thought was on Kylo Ren, who she was currently backing against a cliff wall. She relished it, fighting like every cell in her body was created for the purpose of fighting against Kylo. He kept up, though, blocking every swipe and even gaining ground with a few of his own.

He pushed her back with an outstretched hand, and Rey screamed in rage. She ran back at him and hit so hard that their blades seemed to mix for a moment, turning the light around them purple. Rey watched the color dance in Kylo's eyes, remembering that the last time she had seem this, she barely kept up. She was running and blocking, trying to stay alive. The colors around her were so new then—she didn't understand why they had appeared.

 _Kylo Ren_. In that interrogation room. When he removed his helmet. Before he delved into her mind and she into his, looking at his deepest fears and insecurities. His mind had not been made of fire and blood, but rather of light, filtering through, just dim enough to see. His was the only mind she had ever been in, as Luke didn't know how to teach her mind reading. She felt something in her gut, something she felt in the interrogation room, when Kylo was in her mind, and she seized it, refusing to let go.

And Rey was falling back into his mind, watching Kylo convulse and scream on the floor while a tall creature stood over him, watching on. His screams were the same as the ones Rey heard in her dreams—the ones that she could almost mistake for an animal. His body twitched as unseen forces raged through him, and Rey felt sick just watching.

And then she was watching Kylo fight unknown people, collecting bruises and cuts, his body slowly being taken over by injury. Every night, he asked Darth Vader to appear and help him, and each night he was alone.

 _Failure_ , she head Snoke say. The word echoed over and over in his mind, each time like a stab in the chest.

 _Failure._

 _Failure._

 _Failure._

She was harshly shoved back into their fight, and Kylo knocked her into the sand. He was fuming, and Rey could hear every breath he took. She would have felt smug had her mind not been whirling, trying to process everything she had just seen.

Tortured, he had been tortured by Snoke.

She understood that on the day her colors had dimmed, it was because of Kylo's torture. Because he needed help. Because the Force was telling her that her soulmate was in danger and needed her.

He had _needed_ her.

"Get up," Kylo spat. He gripped is lightsaber like a lifeline, and Rey rose on shaking legs, holding her own lightsaber at the ready, but no longer feeling the anger that fueled her previously. She only felt the sinking realization in her stomach that the man before her was hurt.

Kylo swung his blade down, and Rey countered. He jabbed at her left, and she blocked. She couldn't hit him. Anger rolled off of him in waves, and each one seemed to be building. All Rey could think of was his bruised, injured body appearing to her every night in her dreams and her not realizing what was happening to him. Not realizing that he was her soulmate and he _needed_ her help.

Kylo pushed her back once more and brought his lightsaber down, yelling in his rage. Rey moved to block it.

Three blades connected.

Kylo Ren's red.

The Skywalker family blue.

And Luke's green.

Luke had jumped down from the rock wall behind them and now stood in their fight, forcing it to end.

Luke's anger was so evident on his face that Rey felt fear grip her stomach. Her blood ran cold.

"My cave. Now," Luke said, his voice a fierce whisper. Rey and Kylo deactivated their lightsabers and sheepishly followed Luke. Rey didn't look at Kylo, because she didn't want to know what she would feel now that the adrenaline had faded and her thoughts were solely consumed by Kylo Ren.

She had a bad feeling about this.

"All I asked of you two was to be civil. I didn't ask you to be friends or anything more than polite strangers, and instead you two decide to duel. I am trying so hard to train both of you in the Jedi ways of peace and you can't even follow through with the basic concept of getting along. Neither of you are children, but I forgot that for a moment because of the way you acted," Luke said.

Rey said nothing. She sat next to Kylo in Luke's cave, not saying anything but intently looking at Luke. She couldn't look away, because looking away meant fear, and she couldn't let Luke know that she actually feared his anger.

Kylo Ren, however, was staring at his hands, looking as if he wanted to disappear entirely.

"I warned you about this, Ben. I told you so many times that if you moved even a bit out of line, I was going to comm the Resistance. And that was not an empty threat," Luke said, rubbing his face. Rey's heart stopped for a moment when she realized what Luke was saying. Kylo sat completely still next to her, and he didn't even take a breath.

 _No._

 _He couldn't._

The thought of Kylo being whisked back to the Resistance and possibly _tortured_ terrified Rey. He had only just escaped Snoke, only just escaped being trapped and torn apart and tortured. She knew the Resistance would torture him for information and revenge, and she also had a sick feeling that Leia wouldn't be able to stop them.

She couldn't let her soulmate go through that.

"Luke, I started the duel," Rey said. She swore that she heard Kylo's neck pop from his head whipping up so quickly. Luke looked bewildered. Rey wondered for a moment what exactly she was doing, but she kept talking.

"He was defending himself. I fought him after he tried to talk to me," Rey said. Kylo was still staring at her, completely shocked, and Rey couldn't blame him.

Hadn't she wanted him gone for weeks now? Didn't she wish he had never arrived in the first place? What had gotten into her?

The soulmate bond seemed to grow warm, and Rey really didn't want to think about it.

Luke looked at Rey and his eyes widened by a tiny fraction, but Rey caught it. She could almost see the gears in his brain working—and she could only guess why.

"Ben, give me a moment with Rey," Luke said. His nephew didn't move, and Rey felt his eyes on her. The bond was incredibly warm now, and Rey only looked at her from the corner of her eye. He stood up, still looking at her. The message in his expression was clear: _we're talking about this_. He didn't look away until he left.

"Are you lying to me?" Luke asked. Rey shook her head.

"I really did start the fight. He tried to talk to me about dueling, but I didn't want to speak with him, so I attacked," Rey said. Luke all but groaned.

"You're worse than he is," Luke said.

"I'm not, and you know that," Rey said. Luke sighed and sadly nodded.

"What has happened to you lately? Starting a duel with him and then taking responsibility? I expected you to be overjoyed at the idea pf my nephew leaving," Luke said.

"I looked into his mind during the duel. It was an accident, but I think because of the soulmate bound I'm able to slip in easily. Luke, Snoke tortured him. And I know the Resistance will if you hand him over. I couldn't let that happen again," Rey said. Luke sighed again and dragged a hand down his face.

"He didn't tell me that," Luke admitted.

"I don't think he would have ever told you," Rey said. "So it's a damned good thing I found out." Luke pursed his lips and shuffled his feet.

"Rey, I need you to be completely honest with me," Luke said.

Oh no.

"Is this newfound compassion because of your soulmate bond?" Luke asked, and Rey practically snorted.

"Every night I saw him in my dreams getting more bruises and screaming and in pain and I did nothing. I saw him because he needed me, but I couldn't help him. And I can't let the Resistance do the same and pretend to not know. That's why I'm doing this. It has nothing to do with how I feel," Rey said.

"You're a very good person, Rey. Just let me ask, though: if you did start to feel sometime because of your bond, you would tell me, right?" Luke said.

 _Yes_.

 _No_.

Rey really didn't have an answer, so she instead looked out of the cave, where the sun had begun setting. How had she ever lived not experiencing a true sunset?

"Fine. He's your soulmate, after all. Right now I feel like I'm having infinite one-on-one talks with you two, it would be nice to have one with both of you present. Just tell him that we're leaving for Ilum in an hour and we're taking his ship," Luke said, waving Rey out.

"How do you know that I'm going to talk to him?" Rey said, though Luke was completely right. She already felt through the Force that he was near her cave, and she was ready to speak to him semi-civilly.

"I'm getting too old for this, Rey. Don't think I didn't see that look you shared when he left. I might be old, but I'm not blind," Luke said.

"Thank you," Kylo said when Rey approached him. Rey stopped a few feet away from him and nodded.

"You didn't deserve what Snoke did to you, and I couldn't let the Resistance do the same thing," Rey said. Kylo's brows pulled together in a scowl.

"It was one time," Kylo said, and Rey came close to rolling her eyes. She might have if the sound of Kylo's screaming wasn't looping through her mind. Maybe she would have pushed past him into her cave if the images of him from her dreams—bruised, battered—weren't flashing in her mind. Instead she looked him in the eyes.

"You think that all of those people you fought were just for training? Or that calling you a failure was because you were one? I dealt all of my life surrounded by people like him, who wanted to rise up off of the backs of others, and he tried to do it to you," Rey said.

"Why are you so upset about this? I would have thought you'd be overjoyed at the prospect of me, tortured and suffering," Kylo said, and Rey moved past him into her cave.

 _Because you're my soulmate_.

"Because I have compassion, something that you should learn about," Rey said. Kylo followed her in, and Rey set to packing a quick bag for Ilum. Just clothes and essentials. Ilum, she knew from Luke, was an ice planet, and Rey packed the warm clothes the Resistance gave her, including a jacket from Poe that was similar to the one he gave Finn. He said that he just liked having people who appreciated his style.

"Luke wants you to pack. We leave for Ilum in an hour, and he wants to take your ship," Rey said, not looking up from her packing. She didn't hear footsteps, but she knew Kylo Ren had left her cave.

An hour later, Rey boarded the First Order ship that Kylo had never bothered to name. The interior was a sleek black, with tiled floors and seats along the walls. One door to the left lead to bunks for crew and a small mess, and the door on the right was closed, but Rey had a lurking suspicion that it was a cell. It was all nicer than any ship Rey had ever flown.

Kylo and Luke were still outside, checking over the engines, and Rey dropped her bag on the floor and sat in the pilot's chair. Another chair was to her left, but she was confident about flying this solo. She started the ship and took a moment to familiarize herself with the system, looking over the controls and identifying which was a control to what. She could fly any ship in the galaxy as long as she could pick out basic controls.

The ship's entrance sealed shut, and Rey heard two sets of footsteps approach from behind her. She began powering on all systems, and Kylo Ren sat in the second passenger seat.

They looked at each other.

"There's plenty of seating along the wall," Rey said.

"I'm flying," Kylo said.

"No, I'm flying. I'm one of the best pilots in the galaxy," Rey said, acid in her voice. She turned back to the controls and began setting course for Ilum.

"Han Solo himself taught me how to fly. I'm just as good as you are," Kylo said, pushing her hand off of the dashboard. Rey was ready to fight him again, and he looked ready for the challenge as well.

"That's nice, but I'm flying this ship," Rey said.

"No, I am."

"Just shut it, you're not going to pilot this. How can we know that you're not going to fly us back to Snoke or into a trap?" Rey said, turning back to the controls so she wouldn't have to look at Kylo's outraged expression.

"You know I would never," Kylo said. Rey set the final coordinates and looked back at Kylo, her face absolutely uncaring. She didn't care who he was or what he wanted—like hell he was going to fly that ship.

"Just both pilot it," Luke groaned. Rey could hear the irritation in his voice. "There are two seats up there for a reason. I swear I will knock both of you out and fly this ship myself if you don't stop bickering."

Rey bit the inside of her cheek and looked at Kylo, who seemed to be mirroring her. Luke wanted them to get along, and maybe the first step to that could be flying together.

And getting along would be easier than fighting through the whole flight.

"Get ready for the jump to lightspeed," Rey said, getting ready for takeoff.

"Give us a clear liftoff above the northern hemisphere and there shouldn't be a problem at all," Kylo said.

Rey had to admit, their takeoff was the smoothest she'd ever felt.

* * *

A/N: I did tell you that the chapters were about to get longer and they would take more time. Thank you all for your patience and support.


	15. Olive

"Back in my father's time, finding kyber crystals was an important rite that followed specific rules. But, seeing as that we are some of the last Jedi in the galaxy, you won't be following any rules. You just have to go into the cave and look for your crystals," Luke said. A map was projected inside of the ship, showing the coordinates of these special caves. Ben remembered coming there with Luke many, many years before, and he remembered looking for the crystals as easy. Most of the Force within the cave had unwoven by then, making the descent less frightening than Luke told him.

"This could take between a few minutes or several hours, depending on which crystal the Force wants for you. You may have to go deep into the caves to look, but you will find the one meant for you," Luke told them.

"Sounds easy enough," Rey said. "And you've been here before, so it should be a breeze." Luke smirked, and Ben could almost guess what he was planning. And he didn't like it.

"I'm not coming with you two, I'm far too old to be running around in dark caves. But you two should be fine," Luke said, close to laughter.

 _Asshole_.

"You're seriously going to leave me alone with him? Going into a dark, sinister cave?" Rey said, and Ben looked at Luke, nodding. Luke's sly grin was burning a hole right through Ben's chest, and he knew exactly what his uncle was trying to do. Ben did appreciate his uncle's smiling face, as he could guess that the man hadn't smiled often in a very long time, but Ben would have liked his smile more if he wasn't trying to set his students up.

"If either of you should feel threatened, it should be my nephew," Luke said, and Ben swore he saw Rey's face twitch in a quick grin. "Besides, the Jedi traditionally let their padwans go into the caves on their own. Nothing bad ever happened to them."

"What happens if we need help?" Ben said, and Luke was now openly grinning, making no attempt to be subtle about his intention. Ben almost regretted telling Luke about the soulmate bond, as the one person in the galaxy who should not be playing matchmaker had taken it up as a duty.

"You two have each other. Ben's been in the cave once before. This will help you two learn to get along, and seeing that you are two of the final Jedi ever, it's important for to learn to cooperate. You already started doing that when you flew here without crashing the ship," Luke said. In spite of Ben's growing desire to fight his uncle, he had to admit that he was right. Which wounded him, really.

While Ben had accepted this decision, Rey looked like she was ready to keep fighting with Luke, and Ben almost felt a bit hurt. They flew all the way to Ilum without fighting, and their flight had been so smooth that he almost didn't believe that they had made it. Sure, they didn't talk aside from instructions about the flight, but Ben imagined that maybe they had found some sort of peace. They worked well in flight together, Rey's technical knowledge complementing Ben's navigation skills that he learned from Han Solo.

Ben still felt angry about Rey slipping into his mind and seeing his training with Snoke, but he knew that she hadn't meant to. She was so dazed after he forced her out that he couldn't imagine the idea that she had intentionally read his mind. His bond with her must have made it as easy as looking into a window.

"Go, you should be back a bit after nightfall. Old legends say that you don't want to be in the cave at night," Luke said, moving to the bunks. "I'll be meditating, just send a comm if you really need help."

"We should get moving. The caves are an hour's walk away," Ben said. Rey nodded and led the way out onto the frozen surface of Ilum.

Ben spent his childhood with Leia and Han all over the galaxy. While Han preferred dangerous planets ripe with the possibility of adventure (such as Mustafar), Leia felt most at home on planets like Hoth—she always said that Alderaan had glaciers and snow—so Ben learned to deal with both ice and fire planets just fine.

Rey, on the other hand, didn't seem to be doing so well. Ben noticed how she shivered at every small gust of wind, how she clutched her jacket tight, how her teeth chattered just loud enough that Ben could hear. But still she marched on toward the cave, checking the holo map every few minutes, though she fumbled over it with her shaking fingers. Ben admired her determination, but she was going to freeze at the rate they were going.

"Take my cloak," Ben said, pulling off the long black cloak he wore. Though half burnt away, the cloak trapped warmth and blocked the harsh winds. Rey didn't even look at him, choosing to act as if she hadn't heard him. Or maybe she really hadn't over the wind.

Ben was trying his hardest to reach out to her. Sure, they had tried to kill each other, sure Luke had forced them to work together, sure Ben's soulmate bound could be one sided and lead to a very miserable and hopeless existence, but that didn't mean that he couldn't try to be a friend. Or at least someone to work with.

"I don't need it," she said through grit teeth. Her face was turning pink from the wind. Ben rolled his eyes and held the cloak out to her. She didn't look at him, just stared straight ahead.

"Yes you do. You're not accustomed to this weather and you'll freeze before we reach the cave. Just take the cloak," Ben said. He was rambling as he pulled the cloak off of his back, ignoring the biting wind.

"I told you, I don't need it," Rey said, but Ben saw her look at the cloak out of the corner of her eye, and that was all he needed to know. He shoved it onto Rey as they walked, and he swore he almost heard a 'thank you' from Rey, but maybe it was just the wind.

With the cloak on, Rey walked much faster. Ben tried to remember the way to the cave, though he had only been there once, as a child. He went only with Luke, as his uncle hadn't begun teaching other children.

Back then, the Force had been so weak that Ben simply climbed into the cave and sought out his crystal. Luke warned him that he might experience hallucinations and visions, but there was nothing like that when he descended. He only needed to feel for the faint pull of his crystal to know where to go, and when he touched it, the crystal turned a deep color.

He emerged from the cave holding it proudly, and he didn't fail to notice Luke's worried face as his uncle told him that his blade would be _red_.

But now….

Snoke said there had been an awakening in the Force, and Ben had felt it. He could feel it as he and Rey made it closer to the cave. It was stronger now, like a fog had lifted; the cave was changing, coming alive, morphing back into its ancient state. He could feel the presence of the cave, and that was enough to tell him that this would be a very different experience.

"You also feel it, then," Rey said. She was looking at Ben, and Ben remembered once again that his face was in full view now. Every expression he made, every little sneer and smile, every twitch was fully noticeable. After years of hiding behind a mask, being in the open still caught him off guard.

"Like it's calling us toward it," Ben said, and Rey nodded.

"It wasn't like this when you were here last?" Rey said, and Ben shook his head. "Well that's a good sign," Rey added.

After walking for a few more minutes, the cave appeared before them. An ancient cornerstone of Jedi and Sith history alike, the cave was marked by writing along it, in an ancient, barely recognizable tongue.

"What does it say?" Rey asked, running her hand along it. Ben looked at the back of her head, feeling something twist inside of him, right around the bond in his chest.

"The code of the Jedi and the Sith," he said. Luke had told him that long ago, though Luke admitted that he only knew if because of Anakin informing him. The language the codes were written in had long since been lost to history.

"Ominous," Rey said, and Ben let out a short laugh. Rey looked over her shoulder and smirked at him, and Ben wondered if the Force radiating from the cave was playing trick on him. First Rey talks to him, then she makes a joke? _Something has to be wrong here_.

But Rey's face reset to pure determination and she stepped back from the mouth of the cave.

"Can I trust you in there? At least enough that you won't stab me when I'm not looking?" Rey asked. Ben saw her hand inch toward the lightsaber at her hip, but the fact that she asked him, that she must have thought there to be some chance in actually trusting him, caused Ben to disregard that subtle motion and the comment about stabbing her.

 _Yes._

 _Yes,_ he wanted her to trust him.

And so he told her that. And she smiled faintly, but he saw it. And she turned to go into the cave, but first Rey looked over her shoulder at Ben, who was bracing himself to go inside.

"Just so you know, you can trust me, too," Rey said.

Something very strange happened in Ben's chest, but he didn't want to think about it until they were both back on the ship with their crystals.

The entrance chamber was a ruin. Pillars and platforms were destroyed, and Ben took care stepping over them. The chamber looked the same as he remembered it—though it had no colors when he came as a child—so it came as no shock to him. Rey, however, stood in the center of it all with a stunned expression in her eyes.

"Do you know what happened here?" she asked. Ben could see the entrance to the lower cave, completely intact, before her.

"After Darth Sidious ordered the execution of the Jedi, the Empire came here and destroyed everything. This was all part of the Jedi way of life. But, the cave was left intact so future Sith could build their lightsabers," Ben said.

The Force felt stronger the closer the pair walked to the caves, and soon Ben felt it running through his veins, humming in his bones, beating with his heart. This was power in its most raw form—ancient and vast. And it was part of him.

"Wow," Ben said, and Rey sighed in wonder. No matter what they were about to endure, nothing could have moved those two from where they stood in that one moment, basking in the sheer power of their universe. The Force held the galaxy together, and it called to him, granted him power, gave him a soulmate. And it pulled him toward the cave, but it also pushed him toward Rey. Ben felt joy and anger and excitement and sadness and rage and love all at once.

"Try not to die in there," Ben said.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Rey replied. "Otherwise who would save you?"

Ben smiled at her, and together, they entered the cave.

They split up almost at once.

"I need to go left," Ben said. The Force wanted him to go that way, and he could almost feel a full path taking right to the crystal.

"This way," Rey said at the same time, pointing to the right. They didn't hesitate as they nodded once to each other and parted ways. Ben knew that the nod meant that they would meet back there at the entrance. All they needed to do was manage to make it back.

Ben considered going after her for a moment, saying that going together might take more time but it would be safer. The hallucinations Luke mentioned were still a mystery to him, and he wasn't sure how intense or debilitating they would be. Perhaps going with two people would prevent any real danger from happening. But instead, Ben walked on, letting the Force tell him which way to go.

When Ben visited the cave as a child, the Force wasn't as strong, but he could still know which way he needed to go for the crystal. It wasn't a pull in his chest, like the soulmate bond, but more like a strong sense of direction.

The cave itself was warm, much different from the eternal winter raging outside. Ben took off his gloves and placed his hand on the wall where dormant crystals were embedded. The rock felt as warm as Luke's island, and he kept his hand along the wall for a few more minutes. The cave was so dark that everything appeared in grays and blacks, and Ben reminded himself that he saw the entire world like this until only a few months ago. The only light came from the faint glow of crystals on the walls.

Ben descended deeper and deeper into the cave, anticipating something to appear to him, to jump out at him. But as he walked past offshoot tunnels and turned corners, nothing appeared. It was just how he remembered looking for the crystal as a child.

Finally, just as he felt that he was coming close to his crystal, he turned the corner only to see Rey. She stood a yard or so away, looking at him. He was so surprised to see her that he didn't say anything.

"Ben," she said, and then she was run through. A red blade punctured her chest and left her choking, trying to grab the blade, her breath rattling. Ben yelled and surged forward, grabbing her just as the lightsaber deactivated and she fell. In the dim lighting of the cave, Ben could see her panicking, struggling to live for a few more moments.

He was going to be sick. Rey lay in his arms, and Ben tried to cover the hole in her chest.

"You're going to make it you're going to leave this cave you're going to be fine," Ben said, panic shooting through his voice. He was lying. He knew that she was dying, that it was a miracle she was even alive right then, that her rattling breaths would only last for a few more moments.

"So pathetic, that you cannot even protect your soulmate," a cold voice said. It chilled Ben down to the bone, and his panic doubled. He tried to steady his hands as he held Rey, as she wrapped her hand around his, but he trembled as Snoke stepped forth from the darkness.

"Everything you love will die," Snoke said. "Your father, your soulmate, your uncle, your mother. Everything you care for in this world will be ripped from your hands and burn before you."

Rey had stopped breathing, but Ben held her close because _no no no no_ she couldn't die here. Not when she was looking to build her own lightsaber, not when they had finally established a truce, not when he realized that maybe he did feel something for her.

Lightning shot from Snoke's fingers, and Ben felt pain like he had never known. It was worse than the agony of burning alive, and he screeched as every nerve in his body was shot. He couldn't think straight, could hardly breathe as he writhed in agony. Time seemed the stretch on as Ben looked at the back of his eyelids, the image of Rey's dead body at the front of his mind.

"Kylo? Kylo? Ben?!" Rey called. Ben opened his eyes and she kneeled over him. She was whole, looking at him with concern etched onto her face. Ben wanted to throw his arms around her then because she was _alive_. She was breathing and whole and _alive_.

"Rey," he whispered.

"You were screaming and I heard and I came running. You were just lying here and screaming," Rey said. "My hallucination wasn't even as bad as this." She helped him up, and when their hands met, Ben was acutely aware of their skin making contact. Every nerve was a live wire, and when Rey let go, he almost reached to take her hand again.

"Force lightning," Ben said as an explanation, and Rey furrowed her brows in confusion. "It's a Sith technique where they can fire lightning from their fingertips."

"Stars," Rey cursed as her eyes widened. "Can you do that?"

"I couldn't. Snoke tried to train me, but I didn't have enough hate to do it," Ben said. Rey was silent for a moment, looking at his face. Ben looked away.

The hallucination might have been just that, but Ben realized that what he felt was frighteningly real.

He did feel something for Rey now. After weeks of training and thinking of nothing but her, watching her move and fight, waking up early to watch her run past his cave, wishing more and more to reach out to her and establish a connection, he finally realized that maybe he was a bit in love. And it was crazy, but then again, so was the concept of a soulmate.

But he couldn't tell her. No. He couldn't risk finding out that it was a one way bond, an eternal torture and loneliness. Fragile and vulnerable, hearts needed to be protected, and he knew that he needed to guard his.

"Where do you need to go?" he asked her.

"There's an offshoot tunnel I passed on my way to get to you that I need to go down," Rey said. Ben closed his eyes and felt which way the Force was telling him to go.

"I think I'm going the same way," Ben said. Rey nodded and they began walking toward the tunnel.

"If the Force wants us to go the same way, why separate us early on?" Ben asked.

"Maybe so we could have our separate hallucinations," Rey suggested as they entered the tunnel, which looked remarkably similar to rest of the cave system, but was narrower. Ben and Rey walked side by side, arms practically touching, and Ben felt irritated at the layers separating their skin.

"What did you see in yours?" Ben asked, and Rey's expression became troubled.

"I was watching myself be abandoned on Jakku again, but this time I swear I saw Luke there," Rey said. "I still don't know how I got there, and this is very confusing. I'm planning on asking him about it."

"Maybe it was just part of the hallucination," Ben said.

"No, there was truth in this. I felt it."

They made a left and a right in silence, and Ben realized that their crystals must have been incredibly close. As they drew near, Ben felt the Force pulling him to go faster, and he picked up the pace. Rey walked faster to match his long strides but said nothing. She must have felt it, too.

"The design you're working on looks… interesting," Ben said to break the silence. And it was true. He had never seen a double ended blade in person, and Rey's modified design with a long center was intriguing.

"Thanks. Are you keeping yours?" Rey asked.

"Yes, but I'm hoping for a pure stable crystal to stabilize the blade. That way it doesn't look so dangerous," Ben said. They took a right. Ben was so close that his heart began to pound.

"I hope you find one. Your blade looks like it can break at any second," Rey said, and Ben heard the smile in her voice. It was so odd to know it was directed at him. It was so odd that he liked it.

The Force brought them before a wall covered in crystals, but Ben knew which one was his, which one was made for him, which one would replace his old blade- the one that carried so much death and suffering. It was just above his head, and as he reached up, he knew Rey was watching on. She smiled when she caught him looking at her, and his chest seemed to explode. He touched his bare hand to the crystal, and almost as if his joy flowed out from him, the crystal began glowing a blinding white light.

He held his breath in anticipation and hoped that the crystal would glow any color but red. That was all he wanted, a new color for a new start.

Ben pulled the crystal out of the wall and held it in his hand. It stilled glowed, and he turned to hold it between himself and Rey, who eagerly grinned, and Ben was smiling, too, just from looking at her. They were close enough that Ben could have touched her, could have leaned down to kiss her, but instead he kept the distance between them and looked between the crystal and Rey's grin, not knowing which shone brighter.

Finally, after what felt like minutes but was likely only a few seconds, the light began to dim, and changed from a white to a blue, and Ben laughed. In his hand was a pure, blue crystal that the Force decided was his. Rey was laughing too.

All the proof he needed to the outside world was right in the palm of his hand. A blue saber was the traditional color of Jedi, not Sith. The color of his Anakin Skywalker, not Darth Vader. He wasn't Dark side, no, not anymore.

"Incredible," she said. "Congratulations." Ben just smiled at her, at a loss for words. He wondered if she knew what it meant to him, but then he realized that the smile on her face was confirmation enough. And they just stood there like that, looking at each other. Ben felt the bond tightening, and he knew that it was reacting to being in such close proximity and not wanting to kill her.

Rey turned back to the wall and picked two crystals off from the wall that were at level with her face. They glowed a blinding light and Ben and Rey held their breaths. Ben saw her hands shake, and gently, he put his own under hers to steady them. Rey couldn't seem to take her eyes away from the crystals. After an eternity, one began to glow a blue, and the other turned green.

"Very interesting," Ben said, and Rey positively beamed at him. She was radiant here, illuminated by the blue and green light of their crystals and the dull glow from the dormant crystals on the wall.

"It's going to look incredible," Rey said, and Ben could only shake his head. He wanted to tell her right then, to grab her hand and say she was his soulmate, but no, there was no way someone this good, this _light_ could have him for a soulmate. It was impossible.

So instead they walked back to Luke's ship victorious, both holding their crystals, Rey wrapped in Ben's cloak and laughing, and Ben feeling his chest grow warm every time he looked at her.


	16. Lavender

Upon their arrival back on Ahch-To, Rey and Ben began work on their lightsabers. Rey spent most of her time building inside of her cave. After so many years of building alone on Jakku, it was the most natural way for her. Ben preferred the sunlight, but he would occasionally stop by to ask her a question about a certain part he was about to use, and Rey would answer his question and send him on his way. Sometimes he would stay and work next to her, but they wouldn't say anything. Even so, Ben's presence was nice, and Rey didn't mind him coming.

The bond in her chest grew warmer by the day, and Rey started to think of her soulmate more and more. He began to work in her cave regularly, sitting along the opposite wall as he assembled his lightsaber, and when he finished, Rey felt disappointed that he wouldn't be sitting with her anymore.

Ben let Rey practice her mind tricks on him, and she was soon able to plant an idea in his mind that could last for a few minutes, which Luke assured her was impressive. With Luke, Rey could make an idea last for almost a minute, an accomplishment he hadn't seen in anyone aside from Leia.

Rey learned to swim over the course of a few weeks, first with Luke teaching her the basic strokes, staying in shallow water as Rey first flailed and panicked, but then finally learning to float and swim well enough to cover some distance. Whenever she entered the water, Rey remembered breathing in the ocean and feeling everything close in around her. The fear that accompanied the memory would quickly leave, but she held the ocean at a healthy level of respect and fear.

Then, when she felt confident enough, Ben took her out into deeper water, but never so far that the shore seemed at an impossible distance.

"Swimming still frightens me," Luke admitted, waving them away. "If you want to swim in deeper water, be my guest, but you have to go with my nephew."

Rey grew accustomed to the strange feelings of water surrounding her, her own weightlessness, and Ben's constant presence. He taught her well, but he always seemed to have one eye on her, even after she mastered swimming. Any time Rey ducked underwater, she knew he swam closer and waited for her to come back up. Sometimes, Rey suspected that Luke told him about her almost drowning. She never asked Ben about it. She never told him that he appeared to her below the waves, urging her to fight for her life.

As it turned out, building a lightsaber was easy, especially for Rey, who knew exactly what she needed to do. Luke offered his help, but Rey turned him down, knowing how to build anything and everything she could ever need.

Rey worked on the lightsaber for almost a month, most of the time going toward the design of the hilt. She needed it to break apart, but not so easily that it could separate in the middle of a battle. It took several tests to get that detail right, most of which involved Ben hitting the lightsaber at its weak point to try and break it, but Rey did eventually find a way to keep it from breaking. The trick was to make sure the blade would attach by being twisted together, which meant that they couldn't be broken by one hit.

Rey sat alone in her cave and slid her two crystals inside. She closed the lightsaber and double—no, triple—checked that everything was in working order, ready to go. With nothing but confidence, Rey activated her lightsaber.

Blue and green light flooded the cave, and Rey jumped and smiled. This was her lightsaber, not a family lightsaber she had borrowed. It was hers, because she was a Jedi.

She spun it around several times, just to feel the weight and drag of the blade in the air, but there was nothing, just like the Skywalker family lightsaber. They were meant to feel weightless, like an extension of the arm, and Rey supposed that her arm had just tripled in size. She swung it like a lightsaber, and then also like her staff, and it felt like a perfect hybrid of the two.

It was perfect down to the last detail. Rey had caved in small flowers on the hilt for personal flair, and when her fingers brushed over them, she knew the lightsaber was better than she could have ever hoped for, all the way down to color.

She needed to test it.

Ben was meditating atop the mountain when Rey found him. And she could find him from anywhere on the island. Ever since their trip to Ilum, her bond had grown so strong that she was certain it was a physical manifestation. All she needed to do was close her eyes and feel for Ben, and she would know exactly where he was. Rey wondered if maybe she would be able to feel him if he were planets away.

But she sat beside Ben and waited for him to open an eye. Her lightsaber was strapped across her back, and she could see Ben's at his hip. He would know what she wanted as soon as he looked at her.

"Do you need something?" Ben said, and there was no malice in his tone. There was no malice between them anymore. Rey noticed that immediately after the cave, and Luke had caught on, too. He was keen on leaving the pair alone, sometimes casting a sly grin over his shoulder as he walked away to 'meditate'.

Luke Skywalker was not a man born to meddle in love, but Rey was sure he would never accept that fact.

But Ben Solo was her soulmate, and Rey had accepted that, but she would also have to accept that Luke wanted them to be together.

"Open your eyes," Rey said, and Ben did. He looked directly to her lightsaber, and the good side of his face twitched up in a smile. Rey did feel a bit of guilt knowing she did that to him, but at the same time, she knew he liked the scar, and she thought the drastic alternation to his face looked nice. Even if it came by way of combat.

Ben rose to his feet and Rey followed suit, quickly activating her lightsaber and spinning it like she would her staff.

"I just need to test how it works, so I'll go a bit easier on you," Rey said. Ben snorted in response and drew his own blade. Like his old lightsaber, Ben's new one also had a crossguard, but this one was a brilliant blue and looked completely stable. His took a little more than a week to build due to the fact he used his old lightsaber as a reference.

"How long until Luke thinks we're fighting and tries to stop us?" Rey said.

"A minute," Ben said almost instantly. "He seems to sense our bullshit very quickly as of late."

"Maybe that wouldn't have happened if we didn't take so long to leave the cave and make him think we killed each other down there," Rey said, and Ben rolled his eyes. When they had returned to the ship at the sun was setting, Luke was pulling on his cloak as if he was ready to go out and find them. Rey almost laughed at the memory.

"Then he shouldn't have sent us down there alone," Ben said, and he lunged forward.

They dueled until the sun began setting. Just as Ben predicted, Luke showed up a minute after they began dueling, but he sat in the grass and watched them until he decided it was time for dinner. He walked off very quickly, leaving Rey and Ben to catch their breaths and walk together.

"It's an incredible blade," Ben said, still gasping a bit.

"Thank you," Rey said, breathing hard.

"Are there any others like it?"

"My grandfather killed a Sith Lord who used a double ended blade, but my design is as unique as yours," Rey said. Ben used his shirt to wipe off his face, and Rey couldn't ignore the bare skin he exposed by this movement.

She really needed to get herself together.

"Obi Wan Kenobi? He's your grandfather?" Ben asked, disbelief evident.

"Yes. Why do you sound so shocked? You're not the only one with a legacy," Rey said.

"I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just curious about how that happened," Ben said. Rey looked over her at the dark water surrounding the island.

"I wish I knew, too. I don't have any idea who my parents are," Rey said. Ben didn't say anything, and Rey longed for his family. A mother and father and uncle and a lineage he could trace back several generations. Rey only had one name, and that was it.

"Sorry," Ben said as they approached the firepit.

"Me too," Rey simply said.

Ben made dinner that night, and though it was pretty awful, Rey ate all of it. Food was food, and when she asked for another serving, Ben smiled like she had paid him the greatest compliment of his life. Luke politely declined eating any more, but seemed to watch Rey and Ben intensely, not letting a single movement go unnoticed. Rey just hoped that Ben didn't see the raised eyebrows and smirks Luke threw her way when Ben would talk.

Usually, they would meditate after dinner, but Luke excused himself, saying he needed to do something urgent. He bid them goodnight and slipped away into the darkness of the night, leaving Rey and Ben alone.

In the light of the dying fire, Rey looked at Ben, and the bond in her chest felt as warm as a good day on Jakku, and she almost reached up to her chest to rub it, but she stopped herself when she saw Ben looking at her from the corner of his eye.

She wanted to kiss him right then, with only the stars as witness. She wanted to know what he felt like against her, what it felt like to kiss him, what it felt like be with her soulmate.

"I think I'm done for the night," Rey said, standing up quickly. She kicked the fire to kill it, leaving herself and Ben only with starlight to help them see. Her nerves were building, and she couldn't pinpoint why until Ben stood up with her.

"Can I walk you back to your cave?" Ben asked, and Rey's heart almost stopped and the bond in her chest grew tight.

"Yes," Rey said. And they set out silently. They spent most of their time in silence, and it had never bothered Rey before. As they walked closer to the water, down by the caves, Rey desperately wanted to say something, anything, to Ben, because the silence became a heavy force pressing down on her. But she kept her mouth shut, and Ben remained silent. He walked so close to Rey that she felt her skin tingle every time he came close to brushing against her.

She really needed to pull herself together.

It wasn't until her cave was close that Ben said anything.

"I'm sorry about prying before dinner," Ben said.

"It's not like you haven't pried before," Rey said, thinking back on the interrogation room, when he forced his way into her mind. The first time she had seen him, the first time she had seen color.

"I'm still sorry. I didn't know that you have no idea who your family is," Ben said. Rey shrugged as they came to a stop before her cave and faced each other.

Anticipation built, and Rey wanted to say goodnight right there, but she wanted to invite him inside, too. Her nerves had built to a breaking point, and she drummed her fingers on her lightsaber as she looked up at Ben, and _by the Maker_ , he was beautiful. She had never noticed it until she stood beneath the stars and on the edge of a precipice with him.

Her soulmate was beautiful, more beautiful than every color she had ever seen, more beautiful than that first glimpse of the ocean, more beautiful than a rare Jakku rainfall.

Something in Rey's chest solidified, and it was as if she was looking at the world through new eyes. Because of Ben Solo. Her soulmate.

"Goodnight, Rey," Ben said, taking Rey's hand and squeezing it once before walking away, leaving Rey at the mouth of her cave, head spinning and pulse racing.

Rey waited until he was out of sight before walking into her cave and burying her face in her hands. And then she began laughing.

"Ben Solo," she said out loud. And then she laughed some more, absolutely giddy. She walked deeper into her cave and couldn't help but spinning around in the middle and jumping. She could have danced and yelled and cried.

She was in love with Ben Solo, she was in love with her soulmate.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting anything," a voice said. Rey stumbled mid jump, caught her balance, and pulled her lightsaber in only a second, the feeling of joy gone.

Standing before her was a man calmly staring down a double-bladed lightsaber. He wore the same Jedi robes as Luke and a large, dramatic cloak. He glowed a faint blue, as if he wasn't entirely in the same place as Rey.

"Who the hell are you?" Rey asked, and the man just raised an eyebrow and Rey took a step closer to him, raising her lightsaber so it was level with his neck.

"Now, I know you have never seen me before, but you really can't recognize my voice, Rey?" the man said, and suddenly Rey knew who he was. She gasped and took a step back, deactivating her lightsaber.

Obi Wan Kenobi gave a small smile as his granddaughter was struck speechless.

In all of her dreams, she never thought about what he would look like, and she imagined him older, because this is how Luke always described him. But the Obi Wan before her couldn't have been older than forty. He looked completely calm and radiated an air of comfort and peace.

Her grandfather. Rey Kenobi stared in shock at the first member of her family she had ever seen. She was his blood, without him she would not exist. The floor seemed to fall out from under her.

This man was her family.

"What are you doing here?" Rey asked, breathless.

Obi Wan looked to the mouth of the cave and back to Rey again.

"I see that you've accepted the fact that Ben Solo is your soulmate," Obi Wan said, raising his eyebrows. "I'm here to talk to you about it."

"What about it? And why come now?" Rey asked. Obi Wan sat on the floor and Rey joined him. She wanted to be mad, she wanted to say that she didn't need him after all of the years of solitude, she wanted to tell him how hurtful it was that he hadn't appeared to her before then, but she remained quiet and sat across from her grandfather.

"I need to explain to you certain parts of the bond that Luke didn't talk to you about," Obi Wan said. "And because of your acceptance of the bond, it's important that I tell you everything you need to know."

"Does everyone get a spiritual guide for this?" Rey asked. Obi Wan smiled.

"Only the granddaughters of Jedi Masters," Obi Wan, and Rey learned something about her grandfather—he had a sense of humor.

This was how Rey dealt on Jakku, by figuring out the people she was handling. And the longer she sat across from Obi Wan, the more she'd be able to learn about him.

"Okay, what do you want me to know?" Rey asked. "I know I can see color because Ben and I are soulmates, and I know that the feeling in my chest is the bond, which I think covers everything." Obi Wan raised his eyebrows. Rey took note of his posture—casual, but still authoritative. Her grandfather was used to being the smartest man in the room.

"You're sure you are each other's soulmates?" Obi Wan asked, and Rey felt something like dread in the pit of her stomach.

"Of course we are," Rey said, sounding much more confident than she felt. Something was wrong, and Obi Wan's pained expression wasn't making anything better.

"He's told you that you're his soulmate?" Obi Wan said, and Rey felt heat rush to her face, because suddenly she wasn't a warrior or a Jedi or anyone powerful; she was a girl who knew next to nothing about soulmates.

"No," Rey said, "But I saw his face in the caves, and I know that he saw his lightsaber change color into anything but red. Grandfather, you should have seen his eyes. He can see color."

"I believe you, but does he see them because of _you_?" Obi Wan asked, and Rey felt like someone had taken a shot at her heart. "He is ten years older than you, Rey. Who's to say that he hasn't already met his soulmate?"

Rey put her hands flat on the floor to keep them from trembling and her face neutral.

"That can't be possible. It isn't a one-way bond," Rey said, and Obi Wan's face fell. From pity or genuine sadness, Rey couldn't tell.

"I wish I could say otherwise. More often than not, the bond works in two ways, but that isn't always the case. Many people live their lives knowing that their soulmate doesn't feel the same, and it's torture," Obi Wan said, his voice close to a sigh.

Rey looked at his closely, and though her hands still trembled against the stone floor of her cave, she raised her eyebrows and forced her face to look bored, like she was on Jakku and ready to con enough portions to take the next day off.

"Who was it?" Rey said, trying to sound like she knew already. Obi Wan looked at her and Rey glimpsed the old man he became. His shoulders sagged and Rey was forced to think about how he had already lived his life with the knowledge of his unrequited soulmate.

"Anakin. I was very much in love with Anakin Skywalker," Obi Wan said. He sounded tired, so tired, as if this very fact was crushing him.

Rey didn't say anything for a moment, because she still needed to wrap her head around the fact that her grandfather had a soulmate, then she needed to insert Anakin Skywalker into that fact, and then she needed to factor 'unrequited soulmate' into that equation. It was almost enough to make her head spin. Obi Wan smiled sadly when she had gone several seconds without speaking.

"It seems we have a weakness for the Skywalkers," Obi Wan said. "Anakin was my soulmate, but I was not his. Actually, Anakin didn't have a soulmate because he was a true Sith. He told me that he had never seen color, not even after meeting Luke and Leia's mother. And that was when the bond began to hurt.

"I was so in love with him that I couldn't kill him when I needed to, and because of that, the galaxy suffered," Obi Wan said, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "And I thought that when he became Darth Vader, the colors would disappear, because Anakin was dead. But they stayed until the day I died. So in addition to living with the knowledge that my love was one-sided, I also had to know that my soulmate was out killing people and destroying worlds. But even then, I couldn't hate him. I tried, because maybe hating your soulmate makes it easier, but I couldn't do it."

Rey thought of her grandfather in exile on Tatooine, suffering because of his bond to Darth Vader. Had Ben not sought Luke out, would that have been her fate? Would Rey have had her heart broken every day knowing that he was evil? If the time had come and she needed to kill him, would she have been able to do it?

Rey looked back on every interaction she had with Ben over the previous weeks—the swimming, the sparring, the casual company—and wondered if she had interpreted any of it the wrong way. She had been so sure, so positive, that they were soulmates, _mutual soulmates_ , but now she was second guessing all of it. On Jakku, Rey had never made friends or had a romantic partner, so how could she tell the difference? How could she know what Ben meant?

"I'm sorry that I had to tell you this," Obi Wan said. "But you needed to know. It isn't fair that you were left on Jakku with no one to tell you all of this until now." Rey's anger rose in her throat.

"And why was I on Jakku in the first place? If you're going to come here after avoiding me for my whole life, I deserve explanations about everything in my life. It's only fair," she snapped. Obi Wan looked taken aback by her sudden shift in emotion.

"You can't be mad at Luke for any of this," Obi Wan said, and Rey swore that she was angry enough to shoot lightning. "Everything was my idea, and I made him swear to not tell you any of it. I need your word."

Rey wanted to fight a ghost. Obi Wan must have sensed the anger gathering around her, as Luke sometimes could, and sent her a warning glare, which only made Rey angrier. Who was he to treat her like a child throwing a tantrum?

"I really won't tell you anything unless you calm down," Obi Wan said, and Rey took a deep breath, her curiosity outweighing her anger. She calmed herself down how Luke had taught her during meditation. _An island, in the middle of an ocean. Waves breaking against the shore. An island, in the middle of an ocean. Waves breaking against the shore._

"Good. When I exiled myself to Tatooine to look after Luke, I was lonely. Beyond that, even. My entire culture was massacred, I had no family or friends, and I felt like I didn't even know who I was. All of my life was centered on a Code that I couldn't even follow completely," Obi Wan said. "I wondered if perhaps forsaking the Code entirely would help me to find peace."

"So you met a woman?" Rey asked, and Obi Wan nodded. His hands were curled into fists on his knees and Rey could almost feel his shame come off of him in waves.

"Beth Ayii," Obi Wan said. "She was your grandmother." For a moment, the floor seemed to fall away from Rey again as she realized she had _another_ relative. She was not only the granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi, she was also the granddaughter of Beth Ayii. Both of their blood flowed in her veins.

"Were you her soulmate?" Rey asked, and Obi Wan shook his head and let out a quiet laugh.

"No, it was a very casual affair. She was as lonely as I was, but her husband had died several years before, and she lost all color. She said that it was the worst moment of her life, when her colors disappeared," Obi Wan said, looking faraway for a moment. Rey couldn't imagine it. When her colors had dimmed, it was enough to make her panic for a moment, so she couldn't imagine the torture of complete disappearance.

"We only saw each other for a few months, until she learned she was pregnant. I told her who I was that night, and she said that she wanted me to have nothing to do with our child. And so I didn't," Obi Wan said. "I returned to my exile, watching over Luke as he grew into a child."

"What about your child? My mother? Father?" Rey asked, suddenly heartbroken. She knew loneliness. It was a constant in her life, having spent so long on Jakku with no companions. At first, she told herself that she didn't want to get attached so that it would be easier for her to leave when her family returned for her. But then she learned that alone was safer.

"I watched your mother grow up from afar. Laila Ayii. I would see her with her friends at the markets, or working at the trade ports, or even in the desert wasteland, racing over the Sarlacc Pit because nothing, not the Pit or the Hutts scared her," Obi Wan said, and faint smile touching his lips. "You remind me of her. You even look like her."

Rey could have cried. She had never looked like anyone before. She had never felt the connection of knowing that she came from _somewhere_. In her mind, she saw her mother, who looked like a younger version of herself except with Obi Wan's eyes, racing over the Sarlacc Pit, whatever that was, and screaming with laughter because she was invincible. She was fearless. And Rey was like her.

"Your father was named Zavil. They met when they were young and were inseparable ever since. I never saw you, because as your mother and father were married, I was killed by Darth Vader," Obi Wan said, and though he tried to say it casually, Rey heard the hurt in his voice. The betrayal, the sadness. But Rey couldn't ignore the happiness bubbling within her because she had _parents_ and they were named Laila and Zavil. She wanted to wake Ben up and tell him that her parents were Laila and Zavil and that she looked like her mother. She wanted to scream it over the ocean and let the whole galaxy know that she had a family.

"When Luke and Leia destroyed the Empire, sympathizers were scattered across the galaxy, and many came to Tatooine because of Luke. They raided whole towns and tried to place the planet under militant rule. They were unsuccessful, but they still caused chaos for years after," Obi Wan said.

"Your mother inherited Force sensitivity, but she never learned how to hone it and become a Jedi. Although, she figured out mind tricks and how to knock out the weak minded. In fact, she even began teaching you simple mind tricks, which is why you took to them so quickly.

"When you were a child, I believe six years old, the sympathizers came to your home. Your parents told you that they loved you, they knocked you out, they hid you, and they defended their home. They died that day, and I watched as a ghost. I watched my own daughter, the daughter I had never known, die to protect her daughter," Obi Wan said, and Rey heard his voice crack once.

Rey felt her throat close up and saw her vision swim, but she took a deep breath.

She waited so many years for her family to come back to her and take her away, and even when she knew that they weren't coming back, she still hoped they were out there. But they were long gone. They died for her.

Her heart was breaking, but Rey knew she was loved. She was so loved that Laila and Zavil had died protecting her.

"At that same time, Luke was running from Supreme Leader Snoke. Kylo Ren had given away his location, and every one of Luke's students were dead. I appeared to him and told him about you, the final Jedi in the galaxy. He returned to Tatooine one last time, as all Skywalkers apparently do, and found you. But Luke was a wanted man, and he knew that keeping you close would put you in danger. So he flew to Jakku, a planet even less important that Tatooine, erased your memories, and left you there. We needed to take your memories because the First Order would have absolutely caught wind of a young girl who showed Jedi traits. Snoke would have either wanted you dead or for himself. So we had to erase everything," Obi Wan said.

Rey wanted to explode. She wanted to yell and scream and curse her grandfather. She wanted to drag Luke out of his cave and yell until her lungs blew out. Anger was running through her veins like lightning, and it was hard to keep herself from leaping to her feet, but she controlled her emotions, because she knew Obi Wan was right.

If Luke and her grandfather hadn't hidden her away and removed her memories, she would have been long gone. Or worse, she would have been trained by Snoke, part of the Dark side. And she couldn't tell which would be worse.

But she was still trembling in rage. She wanted to remember her parents. She wanted to know if they were warm and loving and kind. She wanted to know if her mother sang or her father carried her on his back. She wanted to remember their voices and smiles. But she had none of those memories. Not one. All to keep her safe.

"I'm sorry Rey, I'm so sorry," Obi Wan said. "Perhaps we should have given them back to you when you became an adult, but we didn't. And it was wrong of us to do that. You don't have to forgive me, but please don't take this out on Luke. He's wanted to tell you ever since you came here, but I wouldn't let him. I thought that your family should tell you."

Rey took one final steadying breath, because she was fearless like her mother. But she needed to sleep. She needed to sleep for a very long time and talk to Luke.

Then she needed to talk to Ben. She had almost forgotten about her soulmate dilemma, but now she was thinking about the very frightening chance that she might not be Ben's soulmate.

"Obi Wan?" Rey asked, and her grandfather hummed to let her know he was listening. "Why did you tell me about the possibility of my soulmate bond being unrequited?"

"Because," Obi Wan said, "I know you're thinking of making a move, or hoping that he does. And I'm warning you to be careful with your heart—that bond can break it very quickly."

Rey didn't say anything as she thought about how Ben looked under the stars, how she wanted to invite him inside, how he squeezed her hand. Ben Solo was her soulmate, and she was in love with him.

"Did you tell Anakin that you loved him?" Rey asked. Her grandfather sighed so deeply that it seemed to break him.

"Once, when I left him for dead. I told him that I loved him, as if it was past-tense. But I never stopped loving him. I don't think I ever will."

* * *

A/N: Boy do I have a lot to say.

First of all, hello everyone, I'm not done writing this story. I'm in this until the very end. But, I'm a senior about to graduate highschool in just over a month, so my life has been crazy lately. Between that and my job, it makes writing difficult to fit in, but I do it. Now that prom has passed, I think everything s going to calm down a bit, but I can't promise anything. Just know what I'm not giving up on you.

Secondly, this chapter was a monster, clocking in at 10 (10!) pages and over 5,000 words. I've been planning this chapter since I started this fic, and I wanted it to be perfect. I have a policy that I'm not allowed to update until I have to upcoming chapter AND the next one completed, but when I posted Olive, I looked back on this chapter, scrapped five pages, and rewrote just about half of it. It was brutal, but I'm satisfied with it. And I hope you are, too.

Third, my tumblr is .com, and I will post updates there as I write from now on, so please feel free to follow to stay in the loop!

Lastly, thank you all for the comments and the favs and the subscriptions. It means the world to me and keeps me writing this story. Thank you.


	17. Peach

Rey didn't run the next morning. Ben woke up at the same early time he usually did and waited to see her run by. She would only be in his line of vision for a few seconds, but he would wake up at the crack of dawn a thousand times over to see her for those precious seconds.

But when he didn't see her, though he knew that this was her usual time to run past, Ben figured that she must've just slept in after the night before. His stomach did a little flip at the memory of walking her back to her cave, the impending feeling that _something_ was about to happen, the way he kicked himself for hours later, wishing he had made a move. Stars, he even considered going to her in the middle of the night, but ultimately thought against it.

Ben went back to sleep, hoping to catch another hour before breakfast.

Today was going to be the day.

He knew it.

And he didn't want to start it off by meeting for breakfast in asshole mode. So he dropped back into his bed and slept. However, for the first time in a long time, he dreamed.

His mother was there, sitting across from Anakin. Suited in her General attire, Leia Organa imposed a frightening figure as she glared her father down. Ben stood off to the side, as if he was a guard watching over them.

"I'm upset that you just let him run off to Luke," Leia said, and Anakin shrugged. "Don't do that, you know that he should have come here, and now we actually need him and Rey."

"How was I supposed to know that? He just needed to be with Luke, so that's where I told him to go," Anakin said, and Ben was stunned at the similarity to Leia. They even had the same glare that threatened certain death. Although, Ben supposed that his grandfather's glare carried more weight.

"That's not the point. I know that you never were a parent, so you don't understand the fact that I should have known," Leia snapped. Anakin looked both hurt and enraged. His face seemed to morph into the machinery of his helmet for a second, but he stopped it and reverted back into Anakin. Leia stared at him with raised eyebrows.

"You're right. I should have told you much earlier," Anakin said. Leia hummed and moved to the door, toward Ben.

"I'll just have to send Poe and Finn to get them. Anything else you want to tell me?" Leia said, every bit the General. Ben hadn't seen her in years, and though he was unsure about the reality of what he was seeing, he noticed that even though he held her head high and moved with absolute certainty, she seemed older, weighed down. He knew that he had done that to her.

"You would have ended the Clone Wars in only a few weeks had you been a General with me," Anakin said, and Leia rolled her eyes dramatically.

Ben wanted to go straight to breakfast and see Rey, but he knew that he needed to talk to Luke about his vision first.

He couldn't remember the last time he had a vision. Probably when he was still Luke's padawan. When he brought this fact to Snoke several years before, the Supreme Leader told him to put it out of his mind, as the Dark Side of the Force didn't offer visions like the Light Side did. So, Ben supposed, if he was getting visions, it was a very good sign.

Luke always stayed in his cave meditating before breakfast. Ben always found it odd how often his uncle meditated, but Luke was a peaceful man, so Ben guessed that all the meditation worked.

"Uncle?" Ben said, standing at the cave's opening, peering in.

"Come in," Luke said. He was seated on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed. He was every bit the picture of a Jedi master. Ben sat across from his uncle somewhat awkwardly. "You have something to speak with me about."

"Can you sense that?" Ben asked, trying his best not to be surprised by his uncle's ability to feel emotion. He had learned to do the same from Luke himself.

"No, I just know that you would rather be at breakfast, so you wouldn't come here if you didn't have something to say," Luke said, weathered face stretching into a smile. Ben remembered Luke when he was younger, before decades of guilt and pain aged him.

"I had a vision," Ben said, and Luke sat forward, immediately interested. Ben explained it all, from Anakin sitting with Leia to Finn and Poe's new mission.

Luke didn't say anything for a minute. He hummed and stroked his beard. And then he said, "Leia doesn't speak to our father."

"Apparently she does now, and there's going to be hell to pay," Ben said. His mother was a deadly woman, and Anakin had been a deadly man. It was a small miracle that Leia hadn't grown up under his wing—if she had, the galaxy would have been a very different place.

"It seems so. If she's sending people to retrieve my students, it looks like I'll be seeing her for the first time in over a decade," Luke said, slapping his knees and standing up. Ben rose with him.

"You'd come with us?" Ben said, and Luke sighed.

"I have spent far too long in hiding, Ben. If Leia needs you and Rey, then she needs me, too. She has for a long time. It's time for me to leave my exile behind. Last night, I spoke to my father about it, and he agreed that it would be wise for me to return from exile," Luke said. He clapped his nephew on the shoulder and walked with him out of the cave. Ben tried not to question the logic of listening to Anakin's wisdom.

"Do you know how long it should be until they arrive?" Ben asked as they walked along the stone path. Rey would be at breakfast, and Ben's stomach flipped. Today was the day. He would tell her today.

"Well, assuming that your vision happened as you were dreaming and not before or after, they should be arriving," Luke said, and he looked up as a ship flew above the island. It was standard Resistance issue, and Ben couldn't help but wonder if his mother told her soldiers who they were retrieving aside from Luke and Rey.

"Right about now," Luke finished. He and Ben sped up. "Well, at least Rey can welcome them. Maybe she can calm them down before they see you."

"Shit," Ben said. He knew who Finn and Poe were. And he knew that they were not going to be happy when they saw him, no matter how much Rey could calm them down. He was practically walking into a fight.

The Skywalkers crested a hill and watched Rey run at full speed toward the landing ship, lightsaber bouncing against her back. Ben's heart sped up, and as if it was audible, Luke turned to him with a grin that lacked any and all subtlety.

"Let's go," Luke said.

Finn saw Ben before Rey could warn him, apparently. In the blink of an eye, Finn drew his blaster and fired at Ben. Rey screamed and Luke yelled, but Ben held out his hand and stopped the blast midair, earning dual cursing from Luke and Rey, who had never seen that trick before.

Had Ben still been Kylo Ren, he could have thrown the blast back at Finn. He could have aimed it at the ship and destroyed it. He could have made it combust where it was, injuring everyone. But he wasn't Kylo Ren, so he directed it to the ground behind him, causing a harmless blast.

He looked at Finn, who glared over Rey's head at Ben. Poe Dameron stood behind Finn looking both amused and murderous at the same time, which was, admittedly, a frightening look. Ben and Poe had known each other for about as long as Ben could remember. Poe's parents had been close friends and advisors to Leia and, as such, lived at the same base as the Organa-Solo family. The boys had learned to fire blasters together and had both sat with their parents on senate meetings.

They had been best friends for a time.

Ben just hoped that he could fix that, too.

He walked toward the ship, and as he got closer, he saw Rey's hand on Finn's chest as she spoke to him. Ben couldn't help but focus on that touch, the casual nature of it, the connection between the two. And Ben couldn't help but let a terrible _what-if_ enter his mind, but he forced it out. He wouldn't let himself think about that idea.

"You," Finn snarled, pushing past Rey, who looked at Ben with an apology in her eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?!" Ben rolled his eyes.

"How's your shoulder?" Ben asked, remembering the last time he had seen this man. He couldn't pretend that he hadn't been a bit impressed by Finn's talent with a lightsaber on Starkiller Base. Considering Finn wasn't Force sensitive in the slightest and was fighting Kylo Ren, he held his ground for a very long deal of time.

"How's your ego?" Finn snapped, and he threw a punch, which Ben blocked. Ben was about to swing back, but Rey stepped between them, pushing them apart. Poe pulled Finn backwards and Rey pushed Ben a few steps away.

"You're not doing this," Rey said, her voice deadly and filled with Force. Ben felt himself bending to her will and calming down. Even when he broke out of the Trick, but he stayed calm. His stomach twisted looking at Rey as she looked between him and Finn, taking control of the situation. Her hand was on his chest now, and she hadn't moved it. Ben wanted to reach up and hold it, but he didn't think that it was the best time.

"Woah," Finn said as the trick wore off on him. "How'd you do that?"

"Jedi Mind Trick," Rey said. "But you two both need to calm down and not try to kill each other. We have a lot to talk about and I don't want to have to play mother for grown men." She looked up at Ben, as if to drive the point home, but she looked away and took her hand off his chest quickly.

"I suggest that we speak over breakfast," Luke said, finally announcing his presence. Finn and Poe looked awed as they realized who was speaking, and Ben actually smiled at their expressions. Poe had met Luke before, back as a child, but Luke had been gone for a very long time. No doubt this was shocking.

"I agree," Rey said, walking away from Ben and toward the firepit without looking back. Ben felt odd about Rey's sudden change from before. Just yesterday they had been flirting and practically on the verge of _something_ … or were they? Ben felt panic run through him. No, he couldn't have misinterpreted everything. He would just have to settle this later, when they weren't about to receive an important message from Leia.

Rey sat as far away from Ben as she could and wouldn't look at him, and Ben pretended like he wasn't hurt by this. Luke gave her an odd look before shrugging to Ben. Poe and Finn sat together, Poe's hand over Finn's. They fit together like puzzle pieces, just like Leia and Han had. Ben could recognize a pair of soulmates that perfect from a lightyear away.

As Ben cooked breakfast, he listened to Poe's debriefing.

"General Organa send us to retrieve Rey and… Ben," Poe said, evidently struggling over Ben's actual name, "in order for their assistance in the upcoming missions against the First Order. She believes that Ben could have vital information on the First Order that could be crucial for victory."

"I do," Ben confirmed, lazily pushing food onto plates. "And I'm willing to help her."

"Good," Poe said as he took plates from Ben's hands and passed them down. "Then we can leave later today so we can work quickly. Now that you've turned against the First Order, Snoke's been significantly weakened. She knows that this is the perfect time to try and end the war."

Ben gave a tiny grin at Poe's choice of words. Leia didn't _think_ , she _knew_. Ever since childhood, Poe had practically treated Leia as royalty, though she insisted that she was princess to nothing but asteroids and wanted to be called General Organa.

"The sooner the better," Luke said. "It's been far too long since I've seen my sister." He took a bite of the food Ben had prepared and tried to force a smile. Ben knew it was shit, but he appreciated the effort. Rey normally shoveled it all down and asked for more, but her plate sat on the ground, untouched.

"Where's BB-8?" Rey asked, sounding detached from her own question. It made Ben uneasy, because during his time on the island, Rey had never been detached, not to anything.

"We left him on the Base at Leia's request. She said that she wanted us to be the only two coming to see you," Poe said, and Rey nodded vaguely.

She was looking over the ocean with an odd expression, and Ben wasn't sure if he should try to ask what she was feeling, especially with Poe and Finn around. Was it because of last night? Had he overstepped a boundary? Had he completely misread everything? So he didn't say anything and instead didn't even look at her for the rest of breakfast. If she didn't want to speak to him, then that's what she would have.

Ben waited until Poe finished his plate before asking if he could speak with him. Poe nodded, kissed Finn on the cheek, and walked off with Ben toward the highest cliff on the island.

"You aren't planning on pushing me off, are you?" Poe asked, his voice practically overflowing with sarcasm. It was the same voice he had when Ben left the base to train with Luke. They were barely teenagers at the time.

Ben didn't see Poe again until they were on Jakku.

"Is my mother angry with me?" Ben asked, trying to make his voice as flat as possible. He didn't want to sound like a child, but he knew the Poe didn't care. They had been children together.

"The General is angry with a lot of people nowadays," Poe said, "and I have no doubt you're one of them." Ben nodded and looked over the cliff. Faraway, he could see smaller islands littering the ocean. Over his childhood, he had visited many water planets with his parents, but never one like Ahch-To, where there was practically no land.

"Are you angry with me?" Ben asked. He wasn't asking just about the interrogation or torture or even injury of his soulmate.

He remembered sitting in Poe's room the night before leaving and telling him for the first time that he was going to be training with Luke from now on. He remembered how Poe was so excited to go, rushing out of bed and packing a duffel bag of clothes. He remembered telling Poe that, no, he was going alone, because Leia and Han and Luke wanted him to be a Jedi, and then he remembered watching Poe smile anyways and asking Ben to tell him all about it the next time they met.

They didn't meet again, not until Jakku.

"I want to be, I really do," Poe said. "Because you're a real asshole over everything you've done to me for so many years. But I can't, because you can't be mad at someone who took the blame for you when Leia Organa caught you messing with her lightsaber or someone who snuck out of the base with you to play in the X-Wings like we were soldiers."

"But you can be mad at someone for literally torturing you," Ben said, and Poe laughed, nodding.

"That's true, I can. And I was. But you're here, and Rey was telling us that you're different now, that you're not Kylo Ren," Poe said, and Ben smiled. "You should have heard the way she yelled at Finn when he shot at you. She was pissed, and I've never heard her that mad before. Granted, I only saw her for less than two weeks before she ran off here, but I could tell that was a new level of mad."

"Really?" Ben said, trying not to read into it and failing. He was reading into it so deeply that he could have delivered an entire report to the Galactic Senate on it.

"Really. Are you two…?" Poe said, and from the corner of his eye Ben could see his grin.

"No. I mean, she's mine, but I don't know about her," Ben said, tripping over his words. Poe's grin only grew. "Stop doing that."

"I don't think I will. Ben Solo, you have a soulmate. And that's enough proof to me that you _are_ Ben Solo, not some Sith with a dumb alias that sounds like a moody teen came up with," Poe said.

"Don't be rude," Ben said, trying to sound like Kylo Ren, but he couldn't. Not anymore.

"It's true. And I think you should tell her," Poe said, shrugging.

"I thought we were talking about war, not my personal relationships," Ben said.

"We were, but now we're not. Besides, we're going to be talking about war tomorrow and the day after, all the way until the war is over, so I want to keep my mind off of it for a while," Poe said.

"I'm sorry I tortured you," Ben said.

"I'm sorry you're such an asshole. Also, you should tell Rey that she's your soulmate. It's pretty wonderful when the bond completely solidifies. You'll love it," Poe said. He clapped his hand on Ben's shoulder as if they had spent their entire lives together at the base, never ending up on different sides of a bloody war, never hurting the other one, never having to apologize.

"And if I'm not her soulmate?" Ben asked warily.

"Well, then we have a war to distract you from that," Poe said, shrugging.

* * *

A/N: First, I apologize for dropping this at like 12 AM on a Monday morning/Sunday night. Actually, no, I'm not. Second, thank you again for such kind comments. Third, I'm a huge fan of Poe and Ben having grown up together.


	18. Pink

"How can you be sure he's on our side?" Finn asked as soon as Ben and Poe left earshot. Rey watched them go.

"He did abandon Snoke to come here," Luke said, and Finn rolled his eyes.

"You're sure Snoke didn't send him here? Because if I was the leader of the Dark side, I would think sending my student to my enemy and learning his location and all of his tricks would be a nice move," Finn said. He eyed the breakfast Ben made with suspicion, though the only thing wrong about that meal was the _taste_.

"Finn, he's with us. He's been here for a while now, we're friends, and he even made a new lightsaber," Rey said. Rey didn't mention the feeling of _rightness_ that she had about Ben being part of the Light side, because she knew Finn would shoot her down. Granted, a few months ago, she would have done the same.

"A new lightsaber? Wow, incredible," Finn said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "He killed his own father, Rey, we watched it. What makes you think that you aren't next? Especially you, Master Skywalker. Hasn't he been hunting you for years?"

"Call me Luke," Luke corrected.

It would have pained Rey to admit that Finn's suspicions weren't unreasonable. In fact, Rey held the same ones just weeks before. When had those changed anyway? Sometime during their training on the island? Or maybe when she looked into his mind and saw what Snoke had done? Or down in the caves, when she thought they were soulmates? Without even knowing, Rey had accepting him completely as an ally—no, as a friend.

"I know when a person is part of the Light side of the Force, and I know that my nephew is part of it," Luke said.

"With all due respect, Master Skywalker—''

"Luke," Luke repeated.

"-I don't have your fancy magic powers, so I can't trust that feeling you have about him. I need proof," Finn said.

"Red lightsabers are for the Dark side and Sith, and Ben's new lightsaber is blue," Rey said. Luke nodded in approval and Finn looked like he was about to deliver a swift rebuttal when he realized something.

A second too late, Rey realized it, too.

"You see in color," Finn said. Not a question, but a statement. Rey nodded. Finn looked at her for a second before looking in the direction of where Ben and Poe walked off.

"You're kidding me," Finn said. "You can't be serious." Rey put her face in her hand, because in the hundreds of ways she pictured her reunion with Finn, this scenario wasn't on there. Sure, she was going to tell her best friend eventually, because he was the one who had joyfully told her as they ran through snow on Starkiller Base that Poe was his soulmate and that he _wasn't_ dead after all, because he was the one who charged into a lightsaber duel when she couldn't, because he came back for her when no one else ever had. But just not like this.

"It seems you two have some catching up to do," Luke said, and Rey heard him begin to stand. Rey threw out her hand into the air.

"Stay where you are," Rey said, throwing all of the Force she could into her voice. She looked through her fingers and saw Luke standing still, his face the telltale blank of someone under the Jedi Mind Trick.

"Has anyone told you that that's is very creepy?" Finn asked. Luke stood still for a heartbeat longer, and then his face seemed to melt back into his own. Nodding in approval, he sat down.

"Just because of that trick you did, I'll stay," Luke said, and Rey nodded. Because as embarrassing as the upcoming conversation to become, Luke had been with her every step of the way in this mess.

"So," Finn said, facing Rey now, "when did this happen? Was it before or after he kidnapped you?" The edge in his voice didn't go by Rey unnoticed. It was the same one he had used when Rey had first met him on Jakku.

"During the interrogation. He took off his helmet and I saw him for the first time, but I didn't know what it meant," Rey said.

"No one ever told you about soulmates?" Finn asked and Rey sighed.

"I lived on a planet where people didn't have souls, much less soulmates," Rey said. "I just thought colors was the Force awakening in me." She could still remember the feeling of euphoria in spite of being strapped into a chair, the thought that _yes_ , power ran through her veins.

"Stormtroopers all wear helmets that make it impossible for the colors to appear," Finn said. "Even if I had seen Poe during a battle, even if we were right next to each other, I wouldn't have seen in color. It didn't happen until I took the helmet off."

 _Took the helmet off_. It was that damned helmet coming off that let Rey see Ben clearly for the first time and see colors. His helmet must have been made of the same material as a Stormtrooper's helmet. If Rey were on Jakku, that kind of glass could have gotten her enough portions to eat for a month. Anything from a Stormtrooper uniform was worth using because they could withstand almost anything.

"When did you tell him?" Rey asked. Finn laughed and finally picked up the food Ben made, which was now cold.

"As soon as it happened," Finn said. "Because as soon as I saw colors, his face lit up and I knew he could see them, too. So, we just told each other right there. Case closed. Soulmate gained."

Rey thought of Ben's face in the interrogation room and could only remember a stony scowl for the duration of their interaction. No sign that he could see color suddenly.

Finn took a bite of the food, a porridge-like dish that Rey suspected was meant to be something else that Ben wasn't able to cook. He made a face but swallowed without gagging.

"Are you his soulmate, too?" Finn asked, putting the dish back on the ground. "Because, if you are, then I can trust him a bit more because it really puts everything into perspective. I won't believe in a sudden change of his heart, but I can believe in a soulmate bond making him change his mind."

Rey didn't say anything and instead made a face that plainly read _I really have no clue_ and Finn sighed and shook his head.

"How long have you been here, Rey? How long has he?" Finn asked, and Rey shrugged. It was hard to count the days without making a tally on her wall.

"Long enough," Luke said, and Rey glared at him. He had the trouble-making grin he wore when he left Rey and Ben alone for periods of time, and Rey suspected that the face made Luke look much like his younger self, when he was the savior of the galaxy.

"You need to tell him before we go," Finn said, in a very matter of fact voice.

"Why is that so important?" Rey asked.

"Because when he gives the General whatever information he has on Snoke's location, I can promise you that the whole Resistance is going to go to battle. You should tell him before we get into that," Finn said. Rey looked that the medal on his chest, pinned onto Poe's old jacket. It shone a dull bronze in the light, but Rey knew it meant that Finn had been promoted. Perhaps he would be right alongside Leia planning the battle.

Less than a year ago, he had been a Stormtrooper training for his first raid. She had been scavenging on Jakku. It didn't escape Rey that they were growing quickly—the Jedi and the Stormtrooper.

"There's a chance that he might not be my soulmate, and I don't want to deal with that kind of hell," Rey said, and Finn looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Aren't you curious about how he feels?" Finn asked.

"Incredibly," Rey admitted.

"Then isn't this a different kind of hell?" Finn asked, and Rey had to admit that he had a point.

"I don't mean to interrupt," Luke said, entirely meaning to interrupt, "but I'm very concerned about the part where we charge into battle. Does my sister have a message for me?" Finn nodded and began fumbling through is jacket's pockets, pulling out a small silver disc that Luke laid flat in his hands.

An image flickered to life, and there was Leia Organa, standing in a way that suggested both authority and familiarity.

"Luke, if you see this, that means that Poe and Finn found you and let you know that I'm planning on ending this war as soon as my son comes home. Anakin told me that he's with you, and I do hope he didn't lie to me," Leia said. The passive aggressive note in her voice was unmistakable. Luke laughed at it.

"Even if he decided to make my life harder by lying about where Ben is, I want you to come back to me. Come back, so we can win this war, be a family, and mourn Han," Leia said. "I expect to see you soon."

The holo ended, and Luke nodded, handing the disk back to Finn.

"She'll be happy to see all of us together," Luke said. He stood up, and Rey didn't try to stop him that time.

"My mother didn't try to say anything to me," Ben said, and Rey forced herself not to jump. She had grown so used to Ben's constant presence that she hadn't even noticed him and Poe approaching and standing behind her.

"I think," Luke said, "that she'd rather talk to you in person, which she will in a few hours. I'm going to pack so I can leave this planet forever. I suggest you two," he looked at Ben and Rey, "also take care of that." And he left with a nod to everyone.

Rey stood to face Ben and Poe, but found that she couldn't look at Ben, who she could feel glancing at her, so instead she focused on Poe, who always seemed to glow wherever he was. He glowed as he walked around the Base with BB-8 at his feet, as he repaired his ship with Rey, as he sat by Finn's bedside and, with Rey's help, updated him on what was happening with the First Order and Resistance even though they both suspected that Finn couldn't actually hear them.

Poe smiled at her, but then shared a look with Finn. Rey wanted to see what Finn's face said, but if she looked at him, then it would be painfully obvious that she wasn't looking at Ben, and though she felt nervous about the soulmate issue, she didn't want to be _rude_ to him.

"You know," Poe said, in a voice that Rey had learned meant he was up to something (she had learned this because that was the same voice he would use to tell Rey it was time to sneak into the infirmary and visit Finn after visiting hours), "I think that we need to make sure that the ship is still in good shape to make it back to Base."

"Yes," Finn said, "I agree. Why don't we do that while we let them get packed?"

And they were gone, hand-in-hand, and Ben and Rey were alone. She struggled to not look at him, though she felt like she should. Neither of them said anything.

Obi Wan's voice from the night before replayed in her head. _Many people live their lives knowing that their soulmate doesn't feel the same, and it's torture_. He had come to warn her about this, about the leap that she wanted to take, that Finn encouraged. For a minute, words began to form at the back of her throat, but every time, she remembered Obi Wan's words and anything she was about to say dissolved.

"What did I do?" Ben asked, breaking the silence. Rey still couldn't look at him, because she was afraid of what she would say if she did. "Rey, please. Tell me what I did."

It occurred to Rey that her own silence was what was leading Ben to think he had done something wrong, and she did feel bad, but she couldn't bring herself to speak. She had spent most of her life in silence on Jakku, and it was too easy to slip back into the habit.

"I'm trying to learn to be a better person but I need you to tell me what I did wrong so I won't do it again," Ben said. He sounded genuinely distressed, which was an emotion Rey had never heard from him, not even that time he climbed the cliff as Luke rained rocks down on him. "For whatever it is, I'm sorry. Just please talk to me."

And so Rey looked at him, and she was struck again by how beautiful he was, ugly scar and eye-bags and all. And she was floored by the _love_ she felt when she met his eyes. And Rey couldn't stop herself before words tumbled out of her mouth.

"You're my soulmate. And I don't know if the bond is the same on your end or if it's one sided, and frankly I'm scared that it's one sided and that I've been misinterpreting everything. But the truth is that you didn't do anything wrong, you're just my soulmate and I do really like you and I'm scared you don't feel the same way," Rey said all in one breath, instantly wishing she could take it all back, or, at the very least, re-word it.

Ben stared at her, speechless, his mouth hanging open, and Rey began to panic. This is why Obi Wan had warned her, this is why she hadn't said anything to him all morning, this is why Rey felt like she needed to wait.

But waiting is what she had done her whole life. She had waited for parents who were long dead, she waited for excitement in her life, she had waited for friends and family, and she was waiting for Ben to say something instead of just staring at her, and she was done waiting.

She would never wait again.

Rey took a step forward so there was no distance between her and Ben, stood on her toes, and gently pulled him into a kiss.

On Jakku, there was no one to kiss, and so Rey had never tried. She had once again waited, saying one say she would find someone.

There she stood, lips softly pressed against Ben's, and she realized that she had lived her whole life without that feeling, that closeness, that connection. And she loved it.

But she wouldn't force Ben to be a part of it any longer, as he didn't move his mouth or kiss Rey back. She broke away, eyes closed, ready to walk away and live her life pretending that she never kissed Ben or told him how she felt and resigning herself to the fabled pain of an unrequited bond.

She supposed that she was more similar to her grandfather than she anticipated.

As Rey was about to walk away, Ben grabbed her wrist.

"My soulmate," he said simply. Rey looked up at him, and he was smiling like she had never seen. Every color was sharper, more intense, thrown into its full potential. Her heart hammered and her own face broke into a smile as the bond in her chest solidified and scattered throughout her.

Because Rey was Ben's soulmate. They were soulmates.

 _Yes_ was the first word that came to Rey's mind.

 _Yes_ , she was kissing Ben.

 _Yes_ , she was awake and joyous.

 _Yes_ , Ben Solo was her soulmate.

And she knew this was right, she knew, because of that feeling in her chest. It bloomed at the word 'soulmate' and spread throughout her body. That strange feeling, the same feeling that told her that Ben was near her, the one that seemed to appear whenever she let her thoughts wander to him, the one that made her think _I'm in love with him I'm in love with him_ —it was a bond because they were soulmates.

Ben had picked her off of her feet and kissed her. She could feel the smile on his face, and she began to laugh, joy bubbling up in her because she was Ben Solo's soulmate and he was hers.

Rey didn't know how to kiss, but she didn't care if she was doing it right or if there even was a right way, because Ben's lips were on hers and he was holding her, and she knew that the Force was right, that they were meant to be together, that they were always meant to be together.

When they broke apart, still laughing and Ben still holding Rey several inches off the ground, Rey looked into his eyes and saw that he had teared up a little, and so had she.

"Well," Rey said, "I guess this explains a lot." And Ben laughed, and it was sweeter than any music.

"Yes, now you know why I came here so suddenly. It was because of you. It's all because of you," Ben said, and Rey fought hard to keep from crying, because her chest felt like it was bursting.

"You're incredible," Rey said, knowing it was not enough but also just what she needed to say. Ben set her down and took her hands. He pressed his forehead against hers, and Rey wondered for a moment what Obi Wan would say.

"I think," Ben said, "we should get ready to leave. Now that that's taken care of." Rey smiled, and Ben smiled, too, and Rey was sure that she was ready to spend her whole life making him smile.

Ben walked Rey to her cave and helped her pack all of her belongings into one bag, and Rey helped him do the same. They paused occasionally to smile at each other for several seconds, and sometimes to kiss against cave walls. Rey hadn't planned on the latter, but Ben was magnetic now.

When Ben and Rey met Finn, Poe, and Luke next to their ships, and held hands, and the three men knew what had been said. Poe clapped Ben on the shoulder and Finn squeezed Rey tight, but Luke drew both of them into his arms. They were his students, his life, his family.

"It's about time," Luke said. "I don't know how much longer I could have stayed silent about this." Because of course Luke knew. Poe and Finn boarded their ship first, and as they took off, Rey and Ben stood at the entrance to Ben's ship, watching Luke look over Ahch-To one last time.

"I thought I might miss this place after ten years," Luke said. "But really, I'm ready for a change in scenery. I'd take sand over this." And he boarded the ship without any theatrics, two bags slung over his shoulders.

Rey and Ben sat at the control panel and untangled their hands.

It was like they were made to pilot together.

* * *

A/N: May the Fourth be with you. I hope it was everything that you guys wanted.


	19. Blood-Orange

"I'm gonna warn you," Poe said from over the comm, "that everyone on this base will try to kill you once you get off your ship."

"That's nothing I'm not used to by now," Ben said, beginning the landing process. Endor was rapidly filling up the viewport. Poe had explained that after Starkiller Base had located the previous Resistance stronghold, they had been forced to relocate. They also hadn't had enough time to completely make a new base, so they just restored Endor's. Ben didn't feel bad; according to Leia's stories, the Rebellion frequently did the same thing.

"Try not to do any fancy Force tricks. That won't help. Luke, Rey, that also applies to you," Poe said, and Ben watched Rey roll her eyes before smiling at him. With one hand rapidly moving over the control panel, Rey reached over and took Ben's free hand in her own. His heart briefly stopped, but then he squeezed her hand.

He was hers and she was his.

"How bad is the panic going to be when I step out of the ship?" Ben asked.

"It might take everyone a minute to recognize you without your Idiot Helmet, but once they do, it's gonna get rough," Poe said.

"We let Leia know that we were on our way," Finn added. "She should be down on the landing strip waiting for us."

Ben's stomach dropped at the thought of seeing his mother for the first time in over ten years. He felt like he was going to be sick. What would he say to her? An apology couldn't even being to make up for the suffering and pain he had caused her, starting with turning to the Dark side, all the way to killing Han Solo.

But Rey was still holding his hand, still tethering him to his body. And when he gripped her hand like his life depended on it, he felt like he might be able to make it through this reunion.

"We'll see you on the ground," Luke said, reaching forward and cutting the comm. Silence filled the ship for a moment before Rey cleared her throat.

"Leia's not going to be able to stop the Base from freaking out, is she?" Rey said. Ben pinched the bridge of his nose.

"No. At least, not for a few seconds. And really, more than enough time for things to go wrong," Luke said grimly.

"And Poe doesn't want you to do any Force tricks," Ben said to both Rey and Luke. They entered the atmosphere and Ben was forced to drop Rey's hand to continue the landing procedures.

"Could Leia do a Force trick if we need her to?" Rey asked, her hands flying across the control panel like she had grown up on the ship. Ben could see immediately why Han Solo had offered her a spot on the Falcon.

"Leia's tricks are very different than any of ours. Besides, she's the General. If she tells them to hold their fire, they'll hold their fire, no Force involved," Luke said, standing up. He moved to the rear of the ship, allowing for Rey to lean across to Ben.

"Are you going to be okay?" Rey asked quietly, and Ben couldn't help but feel a swell of love for her.

"I've been through worse," Ben said, trying to put on a brave front. If only he were still Kylo Ren, if only he could mask his emotions behind cold words and fire and blood. Kylo Ren would lash out and destroy anyone who took a shot at him, he would wreak havoc and destruction at the first sign of danger, he would turn himself into a living nightmare.

But he was Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren, and Ben Solo was going to face whatever was waiting for him on that Base without losing control.

"I know you have, but that doesn't mean this won't be hard," Rey said. "Personally, I'm expecting a riot. Not a huge one, just one big enough to freak us out."

"You're so positive," Ben deadpanned.

"Comes from living on Jakku," Rey smirked. "We're landing in thirty seconds," she said, reaching up to complete the landing procedure. Ben tried to focus on landing the ship, but all he could think was _Leia mom oh no not good not good shit shit shit_.

Too quickly, the ship landed, and men and women ran through the runway to secure the ship, a few eyes warily recognizing the ship as First Order. It was nighttime on Endor, and the base was so alive. Ben swallowed his anxiety as best he could and rose to his feet.

He didn't see Leia through the viewport. She wasn't on the runway. Ben realized, with a jolt, that he rather he had seen her first, through glass, so that he could prepare to see her aged face, her cutting eyes, her squared shoulders—everything about her that made her General Leia Organa. His mother.

Trying to keep his panic under control, trying desperately to reach the calm that Kylo Ren wore during missions, trying with all his might to not run back to the control panel and pilot the ship to Tatooine so he would never have to face Leia, Ben stood next to his uncle before the slowly opening door.

"Hey," Luke said, shocking Ben out of his daze for a moment, "you're going to be okay."

Luke sounded like Han Solo, and somehow, that made Ben feel so much worse.

Rey joined them as the lights from the landing stop began filling the ship, and she squeezed his hand just once. Her lightsaber was strapped across her back, and her face looked like she was ready for anything from a welcoming party to a war.

The door opened.

The first thing Ben Solo noticed was that no one had noticed him. Anyone who looked into the ship was looking straight at Luke, and why shouldn't they? He was Luke Skywalker, savior of the Force, Master Jedi, all around Cool Guy.

The second thing Ben noticed was that everyone on the landing strip had blasters attached to their person. This shouldn't have come as a surprise because, one, he had lived on one of these bases for all of his young life, and, two, there was an open war going on. But still, he instinctually began pulling the Force toward him to stop any blasts, in spite of the clear orders to refrain.

Luke stepped out of the ship first, and a murmur ripped through the crowd. _Luke Skywalker Luke Skywalker that's him that's Luke he's here Rey actually brought him back he's alive_. Ben saw Luke wave to everyone assembled, as if he were still a young farmboy. Everyone began clapping, evidently forgetting a decade of abandonment at the sight of him.

Rey left the ship as Ben did, the two of them walking side by side. Rey glowed like she was made of Force, like maybe her Light could outshine all that Ben had done. Attention split, then, between Luke and Rey, as the crowd began to welcome her, too. She waved to several people and made faces at some others, and everyone's gaze briefly skipped over Ben.

He hoped, for a moment, that the scar would keep people from realizing who he was. No one had seen him since he was much younger, and he had worn the mask for years. No one should have recognized him.

But a young woman did.

"You!" she shrieked, pointing to him, and Ben could have sworn that her gesture stabbed him. Her face was cruel, twisted into a snarl. People around her immediately turned their attention to who she pointed to, and recognition dawned on them.

Chaos erupted quickly. Everyone was yelling, screaming, pushing to get to Ben, to kill him and tear him from Rey and Luke, who were trying to calm the crowd without the use of Force, but they were vastly outnumbered. No one would dare fight Luke and Rey, but they wouldn't need to, because all it would take would be one soldier, a rogue one, to slip past their outstretched arms and go for Ben's blood. It could be so quick.

"Enough," a calm voice rang out, and Ben could've dropped right there at the sound of his mother's voice. The crowd stilled and composed itself as Leia Organa stepped to the front, flanked by Poe, Finn, and Chewbacca. The Wookie's eyes met Ben's, and the scar in his side began to hurt. He should have feared Chewbacca the most, he knew. He had seen him in a fight, and Ben knew he would lose if Chewbacca decided to charge.

But it was Leia that made his blood run cold.

He had seen his mother in dreams and visions, but that didn't prepare him for standing ten feet from her. From that distance he could make out her face, her strong, calm, commanding face that she had developed after years of fighting in senate halls and on battlefields. Her presence shouted for attention and respect, drawing the Force to her in a way that asserted that she was as much a Skywalker as Luke.

Without thinking, Ben said, "Mother." The crowd erupted into whispers, but Ben couldn't hear them as he walked forward with Luke and Rey at his sides.

Leia's gaze focused on her brother, and she stormed before the crowd to crush him into a hug. Luke gripped her tight and buried his face into her shoulder, and in spite of the looming worry that someone on this base could kill him while Leia was distracted, Ben smiled at the twins' reunion.

They stayed there for a long moment, hugging as if they were the only two on that landing strip. Leia was short, she always had been, and Ben wished to hug his mother close to his chest because he hadn't realized until that moment that he missed her, too.

She had taken him to senate meetings as a child, she had allowed him to journey with her to planets all over the galaxy, she had tucked him in every night she was home, without fail. She was his mother. And he missed her very much.

Releasing Luke, Leia looked at him again, and her beaming was almost brighter than the sun. She looked away from Luke to Rey, and she hugged her like a daughter. And then she looked at Ben, only for a moment, and then to the trio as a whole.

Leia jerked her head toward the compound and turned on her heel.

"Back to work everyone, we have a battle to prep for," Leia said. She walked to the compound and allowed for Chewbacca to lead Ben, Luke, and Rey in. Chewie didn't look back as they all walked, Finn and Poe joining the succession, but the second the compound doors closed, Chewie turned around and picked up Luke in a grand Wookie hug. Luke laughed like it was the greatest thing to ever happen as Chewie yelled out, and Ben felt himself yearning for a Wookie hug.

He doubted he would ever get one after what he did to Han.

Chewie put Luke down, albeit reluctantly, and turned to Rey, hugging her the same. She giggled and Ben felt his stomach turn over. Her laugh was so _good_ so _pure_ and he feel blood rushing to his face. Almost as if he had a sixth sense, Poe caught Ben's eye and gave a pointed smile. Ben made an obscene gesture back, and Poe laughed.

Chewie didn't look at Ben as he followed Leia, everyone trailing behind, and that was maybe the worst part.

"Hey," Rey said, "are you okay?" She walked close and let their hands brush.

"Fine, just thinking about how Chewbacca hates me and my mother hates me," Ben said, trying to include some humor in his voice. It didn't work.

"They don't hate you," Rey said. "They're your family. Maybe they don't like you, but they can't hate you."

"Yes they can, and they do," Ben said. They approached a large chamber that required Leia's handprint to open. The doors parted to reveal a large sitting room, one that Ben had seen in visions. Leia took one of the lone chairs, leaving Ben, Rey, Poe, and Finn to cram into one couch as Luke took the other chair and Chewie stood guard by the closing doors.

Silence filled the room. Ben desperately wanted to hold Rey's hand.

"Welcome home, Luke," Leia said, giving her brother a nod. He smiled good-naturedly.

"It's been thirty years since we were here. The base looks nice," Luke said.

"Well, when the Resistance formed, we had to build something permanent so we weren't stuck staying with the Ewoks if we needed to return here. It's lucky that Lando's forethought paid off so well," Leia said. Lando. Another person to hate Ben.

Leia looked around the room, and Ben noticed how her gaze seemed to skip him. He tried not to feel like she had just run him through with a lightsaber—

He wasn't going to finish that metaphor.

"So, you trained Rey," Leia said, nodding in approval at the lightsaber now sitting across Rey's lap. Leia's own sat on her hip, discreetly hidden by her tunic. Had Ben not grown up with the knowledge that Leia seldom left her chambers without her lightsaber, he would never guessed that she had one.

"I did, and I finished Ben's training, too," Luke said. Ben's heart seized as Leia finally looked at him straight on, and Ben couldn't read her expression. It could have been angry or disappointed or relieved or happy, but Ben would never be able to tell. Years in politics had forced his mother to hide her emotions.

"Good, then they should be able to help in a battle," Leia said, giving a stiff nod.

"I'll do everything I can to help," Ben said, and Rey knocked her leg into his.

"I expect you to. And I also expect you to explain yourself right now," Leia said, her voice icy. "Anakin refused to tell me why you suddenly changed sides, and I won't allow you to freely move around this base until I know I can trust you."

Ben bit back a response of _But I'm you son!_ and instead took Rey's hand in his own for Leia to see. She raised a brow but said nothing. Of course she wanted to hear him say it.

"Rey is my soulmate. I left the First Order to find her after the guilt from what happened on Starkiller Base became too much to bear," Ben said. He was looking only at his mother, but he saw Rey look at him from the corner of his eye. He hadn't told her about the guilt over Han Solo. "I miss my father. I wish I could undo all the wrong I've done in the past ten years, and going to Luke was a start. Helping end this war for the Resistance is more. But I can never make amends for what I did to Han Solo, or what I did to you."

The room was silent again, and Ben could feel everyone's eyes fixed on him. Rey squeezed his hand, rubbing circles with her thumb. Poe bumped his shoulder into Ben's as if to offer support.

Leia stared at Ben, her eyes analyzing, and then she looked to Luke, and the twins seemed to have a silent conversation. Ben knew that the two shared a bond deeper than he could imagine, and that over the years they _had_ developed a way to speak through their minds. It made family dinners incredibly entertaining as a child.

"Rey, Poe, Finn, could you please let me speak to Luke and Ben alone?" Leia said. BB-8 beeped excitedly from where he idled at Poe's feet until Leia added that they were included. Rey kissed Ben on the cheek and let go of his hand as she left the room. Leia nodded to Chewbacca, and he also exited, although Ben suspected that he was keeping watch outside the door.

Leia waited until they were all alone before sighing deeply.

"Anakin, the fact that you tell me nothing is incredibly disrespectful. I'm just as much your child as Luke is," Leia said, staring at the seat that Finn had just vacated, but when Ben turned, he saw Anakin Skywalker lounging on the couch as if he had been there the whole time.

"Ben asked me not to tell," Anakin said. He looked at Ben and Ben nodded in acknowledgement. He didn't think that it was a good time to thank Anakin for keeping his word about the soulmate bond and Ahch-To. Maybe later, when Leia didn't look murderous.

"And if he murdered thirty children in a Jedi Temple and asked you not to tell, would you? Oh, wait!" Leia said, and then she completely turned her attention away from Anakin, whose face morphed faintly into machinery for a moment. Ben loved his mother then, and he hadn't thought about loving her in over ten years.

"How could you not tell me? I'm his mother! I've been searching for him for years and then you just decide to keep him from me? After what he did to Han? He belonged here as soon as he came to you and you know that," Leia said, and Luke had the decency to look kicked.

"I felt that I needed to train him before sending him back to you," Luke said, and the glower in Leia's expression would've sent most people running for the hills.

"I don't care. The fact remains that he is a criminal to the Resistance and my son before he's your padawan," Leia said.

"I agree with Luke," Anakin said.

"I don't care," Leia repeated.

"I'm right here," Ben chimed in, perhaps to keep his uncle and grandfather from Leia's wrath. "And maybe I should have come here first, but my priority was finding Rey above all things. The guilt was eating me alive, and Snoke's training was too ruthless. Something happened to Rey that made my colors go out and I needed to find her as quickly as possible," Ben said.

Leia's face crumpled for a second. And Ben didn't know what to say.

"That was the day she almost drowned. I told her what the colors meant and she tried to scale the cliff and she fell," Luke said, quietly. Ben remembered the feeling that all of the air was gone, that he was suffocating, _drowning_.

Leia sat back in her chair, eyes focused on one spot of the ceiling, in a pose that Ben recognized as Leia thinking, planning. He looked at Anakin and Luke, who were watching Leia very intently. With the three of them gathered in the same room, Ben could see similarities between the Skywalkers. Leia shared Anakin's glares and daring courage and outwardly explosive demeanor—Ben supposed that she was most similar to the war hero Anakin Skywalker.

But Luke… Looking at him now, Ben could see that Luke and Anakin both idly made fists with their mechanical hands, both focused their full and undivided attention on Leia, both pulled Force toward themselves naturally. But after watching all of those holos about Padme Amidala, Ben could see her patience reflected in Luke. He could see her wide eyes, the ones that had been described countless times as hopeful. He pinpointed Padme's thoughtfulness in Luke, the inviting posture, the compassion that Ben knew his mother sometimes lacked. Luke was the son of Padme Amidala.

Ben wondered who he was most like. He wasn't clever or cunning like his mother, and he wasn't as creative or quick as his father. Han had never spoken of his parents to Ben, so maybe he was like them. Maybe they were unsure of themselves and constantly confused. Perhaps Ben was most like Anakin—moody Anakin who had passed his anger onto Leia, rash Anakin who had torn the Force apart. He knew he was unlike Padme Amidala, who led Naboo without losing her temper, who did was right no matter how many people were against her, who was beloved by countless systems.

 _Who are you like, Ben?_

 _No one._

"I asked your father to bring you home," Leia said. "That was the last thing I ever said to him." Her voice caught in her throat.

"He told me. He wanted to help me find peace. I was so torn, in so much pain, and all he wanted to do was help," Ben said. He closed his eyes, and he saw Han Solo standing before him, not a war hero or a general—just a father. A father who would do anything for his son.

"You thought killing him would bring you peace," Leia said. Not a question, a statement.

"Yes. And I was wrong. It brought me anything but," Ben said. "For weeks, when I trained under Snoke, I was torn apart, second guessing what I had done, unable to fight off the guilt. It was so strong that it blocked me from training with the Force."

"You begged for me to help you overcome that," Anakin said, and Leia turned to her father briefly. "He said that he was more split than ever before. That's part of what convinced me to help him. Leia, he was suffering every day with Snoke."

"And he did say the same to me," Luke added. "Leia, can't you feel it? The guilt? The sorrow? Ben is not on the Dark side anymore. I know you can feel it."

"Han," Leia said after drawing a deep breath, "loved you more than anything else in this world. More than his ships, more than his adventures." Ben tried not to think of the lonely morning where he knew Han had left in the middle of the night without him.

"In spite of what he wanted the world to believe," Leia continued, "your father loved very deeply, in his own way. And I know, as his soulmate," Leia said, and Ben very clearly felt a weight drop onto his chest, "that he would forgive you—his only son. Because he could have run from you and told me that he couldn't find you on that Base. But instead, he went to you and tried to bring you home. And his sacrifice was worth it. Because here you are.

"If you stay here, on this base, and assist the Resistance in locating Snoke and destroying the First Order, I can pardon all of your war crimes," Leia said. Ben didn't miss the threat in his mother's words. It was that simple of a choice—help or be held as a criminal.

"He's on Naboo," Ben said.

"Noted. You'll explain the details for my counsel tomorrow morning. You know how that goes." Ben did; he remembered Leia standing with her captains and generals around maps in dimly lit rooms, discussing the best ways to eliminate the fighting in the Outer Rim. He had listened to countless soldiers and spies stand out and present information. Now it was his turn.

"Thank you," Ben said, and Leia's face changed. She smiled, larger than Ben had ever seen, and stood from her seat.

"Welcome home, Ben," she said, and Ben hugged her. He tried to focus every apology, every regret, every bit of love into that one hug, and he found himself crying. Leia rubbed circles on his back as his whole body shook with sobs. Because he was home. He was home and he had his mother and she didn't hate him.

Ben was home.

"This is where you'll be staying," Leia said, leading Ben and Rey into the chamber. Before them was a large sitting room with several doors, one of which was open to reveal a bedroom. When Ben and Rey stepped inside of it, they were both uncharacteristically silent.

There was only one large bed in the room. Ben remained silent so he wouldn't say anything that he would instantly want to take back. Rey was turning red beside him. Leia, much to her credit, noticed this all rather quickly.

"I thought with you two being soulmates and all…" Leia said, trailing off into an embarrassed silence. Ben still wasn't going to say anything. Not with Rey giving off waves of mortification and his mother trying to explain how she thought they were _sleeping together_. "I just… I didn't mean to assume. I'm sorry. If you want, I could move one of you into a different room."

Ben wasn't opposed to sharing a bed, and that's what the problem was. He didn't want to force Rey into sharing a bed. Though he couldn't deny that the idea of curling up next to Rey for a night was enough to scramble his thoughts, Ben was more concerned about how she felt. And if Rey wanted to take things slowly and sleep elsewhere, Ben wouldn't stop her.

"I'm going to go and get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow morning for the council. Let a guard know if you want separate rooms," Leia said. She exited the chamber, leaving Ben and Rey both staring at the bed.

And so he cleared his throat.

"You don't have to sleep with me if you don't want to," Ben said, and he instantly wished he hadn't spoken at all. Rey was still staring at the bed as Ben stared at her. "I meant, you can go somewhere else for the night if you're uncomfortable. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, I won't be offended."

Rey just walked to the bed and sat on it, pulling her knees up into her chest and propping her head on them. Ben took this as a sign that it was okay for him to sit next to her.

"I grew up totally alone on Jakku," Rey said. "So I didn't know too many people. And out of the few people I did know, I didn't trust any of them enough to let them get close." Ben thought of growing up with Han and Leia, with Lando and Chewie, with Poe and Luke. He couldn't imagine a childhood without people close to him.

"I don't know how friendships work, much less relationships. But I think that they involve a lot of communication," Rey said, and Ben nodded. "You're my soulmate and I want us to be… good together. So I'm just going to say what I'm thinking, okay?"

"You don't have to ask permission to do that," Ben said as he shifted his whole body to face Rey.

"I'll remember that next time you're being awful," Rey said, smiling. "But, really, I don't want to sleep with you. At least, not yet. This is all very new to me, and I don't want to rush." She held out her hand to Ben, and he took it. Rey smiled a shy smile.

"We can be as slow as you like," Ben said. Rey sighed in what Ben could only guess was relief.

"Good. Besides, I would have no idea what I was doing," Rey said, laughing. Ben cracked a smile and leaned back on the bed.

"Neither would I," Ben said, and Rey threw herself down next to him. Their faces were inches apart, and Ben put his hand between them. Rey covered it with hers.

"You're lying," Rey said. Ben started to laugh.

"I'm not. Young Ben Solo was not someone girls wanted," Ben said, fondly remembering his awkward teen years.

"Tell me about him, I'm sure he can't be that much worse than you now," Rey said. And so Ben did. He told her all about the nights spent with Poe and his friends, wishing that the bottle would land on him just once so he could be kissed, wondering if maybe he could use the Force to make the spins stop on him. Then he told her about how Ben Solo would sulk in corners and ask Anakin Skywalker how to talk to girls — "Rey, I'm being serious. Han Solo was terrible with that kind of advice. Please stop laughing"—and pretend to be miserable when really he was having a great time with Luke and the other padawans. He hadn't grown into his height yet and walked with a chip on his shoulder from being a Skywalker. It wasn't a pretty sight. Rey was crying at the end of it all and laughing too hard to speak.

And then she told him about life on Jakku, about growing up alone, about scavenging and fighting for the best territory, about the island she dreamed to put herself to sleep at night, about the rations and older women and sandstorms and keeping parts for herself. She wove him stories about risky trades and fighting off thieves. Then she told him about meeting BB-8 and Finn, about stealing the Falcon after calling it 'garbage', which sent Ben into hysterics.

They talked for hours, until Rey started to doze off and Ben decided that it was time to leave. He kissed her and she drowsily kissed him back, which caused Ben to smile like a kid, but as he turned to leave the bed, Rey caught his arm.

"Where are you going?" she asked, voice heavy with sleep.

"To another room," Ben said, already missing the feeling of lying next to Rey.

"I said I didn't want to sleep with you, not that you couldn't sleep next to me," Rey said, yawning. "Besides, I like touching you. Come back."

And Ben did.

* * *

A/N: Hello everyone! Hope you liked the chapter. Thanks again for being patient as I write to give you guys the best story I can!


	20. Canary

Rey awoke tangled in Ben's arms, and she decided that there was nothing more she loved in the galaxy. Careful not to wake Ben, Rey looked over her shoulder at his sleeping face. She had never seen him look so peaceful—it made him look younger. Even with that nasty scar across his face, he still looked lovely and calm. Rey shifted her weight slightly to look fully at him, and Ben tightened his arms around her. At some point in the night he had stripped of his shirt, and Rey allowed herself a moment to admire what skin she could see from her angle.

She could get used to this.

Sunlight was filtering in through a crack in the window above the bed— _their bed_ , Rey corrected—and Rey managed to untangle herself from Ben's sleeping form and throw open the window and flood the room with light.

Ben groaned and stuffed his head under a pillow. Rey laughed at him and sat back down on their bed, ripping the pillow away. Scavenging days on Jakku meant waking up at the first note of sunrise, so even rising with the sun fully in the sky made Rey feel as if she were missing the whole day. Ben, on the other hand, seemed to Rey as someone who would refuse to be awake any time before high noon.

"Get up, we have a war council to go to," Rey said. Ben was still facedown, fighting a losing battle against the morning light. For a second, Rey considered closing the window and going back to sleep, once again wrapped in his arms, but she quickly expelled the thought. They had work to do and a war to win.

"My mother is inhumane if she made the meeting so early," Ben mumbled, turning his head so Rey could hear him. The sunlight caught in his hair for moment, and Rey noticed that it was several shades of brown in some places. She giggled as she moved to the dresser, opening it to find clothes stuffed to the brim, all for her. Never in her life had she had so many clothes. She reached in at random and pulled out a white tunic and dark blue pants.

"What?" Ben mumbled, barely audible through the pillow he had put back over his head.

"Nothing," Rey said, changing into her new tunic. She didn't care about nudity—Jakku had never been a place for modesty. "It's just that your hair is looking lighter. Almost brown." The bed groaned as Bed shot up.

"Shit," Ben said, holding a strand of hair to the light. Rey changed her pants while his back was turned. "It's going back." Rey froze.

"Do you… do you dye your hair?" Rey asked, hardly able to contain her giggles. Ben didn't answer, and that was enough confirmation for her. She leaned against the dresser and laughed as Ben shot a glare at her, dropping his—brown—hair.

"It's fine," Rey said between giggles. Ben was still glaring, although the glare carried much less weight without the threat of Kylo Ren killing her behind it. "No one will even notice." Ben grunted and moved to the dresser, opening the drawer and the very bottom and pulling out clothes to examine in the light. The first shirt he pulled out was black and Rey watched him shove it back rapidly.

"We don't have to get dressed up, do we? It's just a war council," Rey said. Ben shook his head and pulled out another shirt—this one a deep purple.

"No, but I can't wear black. People see black and they make the association to Kylo Ren," Ben said, pulling the shirt over his head. Rey watched his back as he did this, and she was almost floored the way his muscles moved.

"They're going to think Kylo Ren anyways," Rey said, and Ben flinched. "You know it's true." Ben sighed and nodded, turning back to Rey. How could they not? His voice and his posture were unmistakably Ren.

"I know. But maybe if I don't look like I'm here to kill everyone, they won't be as forward about how little they trust me," Ben said.

Rey figured there wasn't much point in telling him otherwise.

"Do you want to meditate?" Ben asked as they moved into the common room. Rey sighed. Throughout all the months spent on Ahch-To, Rey had never improved her meditation skills. She still felt like she was just staring at the back of her eyelids for several minutes. Frankly, she suspected that would never be able to meditate because she had never been able to fully relax for a moment on Jakku, and so she would never be able to do so in meditation. It was really a positive, she argued, that she was always hyperaware of her surroundings. Luke was dubious but nevertheless had agreed with her.

"I'll pass. I'm going to find Poe and Finn. Meet me in the mess?" Rey said, and Ben nodded and kissed her goodbye.

Rey noticed, oddly, that soldiers on the base seemed to glare at _her_ as she passed them in the hallway. She would hear chatter from behind a corner, but as soon she turned it, silence would fall and people in the hallways would openly throw hostile looks her way. Even when Rey would raise her hand in greeting or say hello, there were no friendly reactions.

The base was larger than Rey assumed, and after several minutes of pointless wandering, Rey was lost. And seeing as that the entire base had turned against her overnight, she was just going to have to figure it out herself. Her initial thought was to find some sort of map, but then she had a better idea. A more Jedi idea.

Rey stopped and found a quiet corner in an empty corridor and closed her eyes and _reached_ through the base. She could feel everyone. She felt every soldier and technician. She felt Luke and Leia on the far side of the base. She felt Ben in their chambers. But she still searched harder, until she was able to feel Finn and where he was in relation to her. Though she wasn't exactly sure how, Rey could almost see the entire layout of the compound before her, and when she opened her eyes, she knew exactly where to find Finn.

It took a few minutes to meet him, and Rey kept a quick pace as she walked, now knowing where she was going. Her lightsaber bounced on her back, the weight of it reassuring her. When she finally turned a right, and saw the back of Finn's head, she broke into a little jog and fell into step at his side.

"Good morning," Rey said, and Finn put his arm over her shoulder.

"Morning. How'd you find me over here?" Finn asked. He was wearing Poe's jacket—his _original_ jacket, the one Poe had insisted he keep—and walked with authority in his step.

"Er…" Rey said, not sure how to explain what she had done.

"Was it a Jedi thing?" Finn asked, and Rey nodded. "Okay, that's all you need to say if it's hard to explain."

"Thanks," Rey said. They turned a corner and were outside of the mess. A group of radar technicians sneered openly at Rey as they passed. "Everyone's been looking at me pretty hostile this morning. Any idea why?" Finn shrugged.

"It's probably because you and Kylo Ren—"

" _Ben_ —"

"—are soulmates. Word spread pretty quickly when you stepped off of that ship together. I guess most people think that makes you a traitor," Finn said. Rey felt rage flare inside of her.

"That's ridiculous! I can't even control the bond! Besides, the fact that ben has a soulmate should show everyone that he's not part of the Sith, because Sith don't see in color. Did they treat Poe like this when you arrived here?" Rey asked. Finn still had one hand on her shoulder as she twisted her body to snap at him.

" _I_ didn't murder hundreds of people before showing up like nothing happened," Finn said. Rey silently fumed as they picked up breakfast. Even though she hated to admit it, Finn was right. Everyone aside from herself and Luke had no reason to trust Ben. And she supposed that by extension, no one had a reason to trust her.

"I'm sorry it's like this," Finn said as they sat down. "He's a jerk, but I don't think everyone should take it out on you."

"Thanks, Finn," Rey said, shoveling food into her mouth. It wasn't as good as the food from Luke's island, or the food from Maz's pub, but it was lightyears better than Jakku portions. She and Finn fell into a silence that only appears when two people are too engrossed in food to do anything aside from chew.

Poe joined Finn and Rey moments later, a mug of caf in his hand. He was uncharacteristically silent as he chugged down the drink (which Rey found _vile_ ). Months ago, before she left to train but after Starkiller Base, Rey learned very early on that Poe Dameron was not a morning person, and that talking to him before he finished his caf would result in sullen stares and grunts in the place of words.

The table remained quiet for a few more minutes, and the mess remained at a very low volume level, until the outbreak of whispers and murmurs announced Ben's arrival. Rey sighed and wondered if, after the upcoming battle, things would change in the Resistance. She turned her head and watched as Ben marched across the mess, looking like getting to the food counter was a mission.

"He still walks like Kylo Ren," Poe said, effectively surprising Rey. She turned to him, and his mug was still in his hand, half full of caf. "You know what I mean, though. He still has that strut." Rey nodded, remembering him using that very strut as he approached her in the forest, as he walked across the room of an interrogation chamber, as he moved onto a bridge.

Poe was right—it was very much a Kylo Ren swagger.

Ben took his food, and from afar, Rey saw him smile at the chef behind the counter, and, much to her surprise and relief, the chef returned the smile. He walked across the mess (still reminding Rey of Kylo Ren), and slid into the seat to Rey's right. He nodded in acknowledgement to both Finn and Poe, who returned the nod, and brushed his hand over Rey's before diving into his food.

"How long until the war council?" Ben asked between bites. A group of young girls walked behind him, whispering harshly. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care.

"About half an hour? We need to be there early we can be next to the general," Poe said. Rey noted that he was speaking more as the caf in his cup decreased. "You're going to be the most important in the room." Poe pointed to Ben and added, "You must be used to it by now."

"I am," Ben said, his voice dropping back to what he sounded like as Kylo Ren. Even Rey froze for a brief moment before Ben chuckled.

"You're not funny," Finn said, and Rey nudged him in the ribs. Just because it was true didn't mean that she was going to let him say it.

"It takes some time," Ben said, shrugging. Rey looked over his shoulder and saw a whole table of technicians looking like they were ready to shoot at him.

"To stop being a schlenger or to develop a sense of humor?" Finn said. Poe grinned, and Rey was forced to wonder if this was how the rest of her life was going to go. Her best friend and soulmate bickering into eternity.

"We're not about to have this argument before a war council," Rey said before Ben could counter. "Do it some other time, but right now we have to think about what we're going to say."

"You mean, what he's going to say," Poe said, gesturing to Ben. "We won't get mobbed if we give unsatisfactory information."

"The information I have is more than satisfactory. And, it might lead to a full out invasion and battle that could end the war." Rey, in spite of knowing the information Ben was to give, perked up at the promise of ending the war.

Of course, Rey knew, Ben didn't just mean the war between the Resistence and the First Order. He also meant between the Jedi and Sith. If he and Rey could succeed in eliminating Snoke, the final major leader of the Sith would be dead. There would be balance in the Force.

Rey had thought about this many times, alone in her cave, even the night before as she dozed off in bed with Ben. This was the duty of her family, to serve the Light, and it was the war raging within Ben and the whole Skywalker family. They could end it. They could both end what their grandfathers had begun.

"Council's in five, I think we should get moving," Poe said, setting down his empty mug.

The thing about General Leia Organa, Rey realized, was that she never needed to fight for the attention in a room. From the second she entered the chamber holding the war council, every eye was on her. Rey admired how tiny, elegant Leia walked through a throng of soldiers and positioned herself closest to the holo table without ever having to so much as excuse herself. Even before she spoke, Rey noticed that no one else spoke. Beside her, Ben was breathing quietly.

"I am aware that this might come as a shock to everyone," Leia said, looking around the room, "But, as you know by now, my son is here in this room. He defected from the First Order and Supreme Leader Snoke, trained in the way of the Jedi with my brother, and is now here of his own free will to give us information on Snoke's location and army."

Rey didn't hear the uproar in the chamber, but she certainly _felt_ it. The atmosphere became tense, and the Force shifted to feel colder. Rey glanced at Ben, beside her, and he was carefully looking around the room. When Rey looked back to Leia, her expression had not changed.

"After hearing the information, we will begin planning the attack," Leia said, and then she looked to her son. "Ben," she prompted. From Rey's side, Ben nodded and stepped closer to the holo table; to his right stood every powerful general in the Resistance; to his left- Luke. In his purple shirt and with his Kylo Ren swagger, Ben looked to Rey as if he belonged at that holo table.

"Snoke has been residing on Naboo for the past few months. He and the top leaders of the First Order, including General Hux and Captain Phasma, have been using the Palace as their base," Ben said. Leia pressed a button, and a map of the Naboo Palace appeared. Rey took note of the sheer size of the palace, and began to take note of every obvious point of entry—the hangar, the front entrance, the water garden- and then the less obvious ones—third floor windows, the bunker below the grand ballroom, the balconies off of the fifth floor. Rey wasn't planning on sitting silently through this council.

"All native life forms of Naboo have left, including the Gungan. The city surrounding the palace is in perfect condition, but all other cities are ruins. Some humans still live in small tribes, but I doubt that they can be of any help. In every place except the palace, the water has been poisoned and the forests have been leveled. Around the palace, there are several training grounds for Stormtroopers.

"The Throne room is where Snoke spends most of his time and holds council in there. His generals and other members of the military are scattered throughout the palace. Personally, I suggest an invasion through the gardens tonight, before he has any time to prepare for an attack. The gardens aren't heavily guarded and should provide an easy point of entrance into the palace for the attack," Ben said, nodding to his mother to signal that he was done. _No_ , Rey thought _, not the gardens. He's had to have lain traps._

"Thank you, Ben," Leia said. "I agree with an attack tonight, but we need to plan the entry point. Ben suggested the gardens," Leia said, pointing to the large area behind the palace that included ponds and gazebos, "but I would like to hear all other suggestions. I suggest entering through the bunker that the center of the palace is built on."

"Perhaps we begin with an aerial assault to weaken their towers and primary defense, and then we land right here," a young general said, gesturing to the front steps, "and storm the palace. Entering from the front might be obvious, but it's _too_ obvious, and that could prove to our advantage." Rey thought that was a terrible plan, and had Poe not spoken immediately after, she could have lectured the general about how entering through the front could surprise them, but it would also give a very clear path for Stormtroopers to follow. Rey glanced to Leia, and the skeptical face on Leia's face matched Rey's own.

"I'm thinking that we drop soldiers directly onto the roof. Any guard on that roof must've been trained as a sniper and won't fare well in close combat. The move is also so bold that we might catch them off guard," Poe suggested. Rey liked his suggestion better, but still, she found herself stepping forward, between Luke and Ben. Before saying anything, Rey toggled with the holo, zooming in to a small door outside of a chamber in the very back corner of the palace.

"Ben, what room is this?" Rey asked, and Ben squinted.

"The library," Ben said, and Rey nodded, a plan forming in her head.

"When I scavenged on Jakku, I set booby traps in the areas where I was least likely to spend my time guarding, just like how I'm guessing that the garden is filled with traps for us, so I don't think we should enter from there," Rey said, and Ben nodded in agreement, mouth quirking into a smile.

"The bunker, General, is a good idea, except that as soon as we entered from the distant end, we would have to worry about Snoke sensing us as we moved closer. Plus, it lets out into the middle of the palace, so we'd be walking right into high security if he knew we were coming, so I suggest that we keep the bunker idea under consideration but modify it if we decide to use it," Rey said, and Leia looked proud. How long had it been since someone said no to Leia?

"As for entering through the front door, I shouldn't even need to explain why that idea is bantha waste. And the roof idea is tricky, but could work," Rey said, meeting the young general's harsh glare.

"What do you suggest, Master Kenobi?" Leia said, and time stopped around Rey. _Master Kenobi_. Her grandfather's title. The rank of the most elite Jedi in the Galaxy.

 _That's me_ , she realized. Rey wasn't a nobody anymore. She wasn't just _Rey_.

 _Jedi Master Rey Kenobi._

"We follow Dameron's roof plan, but a small squad should enter through the back door of the library. I doubt it's heavily guarded, and perhaps we could make it through the palace before anyone notices we've entered at all. With a small squad, we could break into the throne room without maneuvering twenty or thirty people and take out Snoke quickly," Rey said, tracing her finger through the holo to create a path from the library to the throne room, imagining the sounds of five pairs of feet smacking against stone in empty halls. "A small squad also reduces the number of possible casualties," Rey added, looking around the room.

Next to her, Ben was nodding and examining the holo with careful concentration. Luke was smiling down at Rey and pride was rolling off of him. Rey met Poe's gaze and he gave her a crooked smile that screamed that he was ready for any crazy plan. Finn stood next to him and gave Rey a thumbs up.

"Well," Leia said, "I think we need to discuss who gets to be part of the small attack squad."

In the end, it was decided that Luke, Leia, Rey, Ben, and Finn would enter through the library, while Poe would lead the roof landing and continue as the leader of an aerial battle. From the moment that the doors to the war council opened, they would have four hours to prepare. Luke grabbed Rey and Ben by the arms as they filtered out of the room, jostled by hostile soldiers.

"Take Finn and meet me in Leia's chambers as soon as possible," Luke said before mixing into the crowd.

"I was planning on meditating until we left," Ben mumbled. Rey hummed and moved toward Finn. She hadn't planned on doing anything until the battle, much less _meditating_. Finn saw her working through the crowd and broke away from Poe to go to her.

"Luke and Leia want to see you," Rey said. Finn nodded, turned to wave to Poe, and began to walk with Ben and Rey.

"Don't you want to say goodbye to him?" Ben asked.

"I'll see him right before takeoff. Right now, the Wonder Twins need me," Finn said. Ben snorted, and Rey pondered if it was the imminent battle or the fact they were walking right to the Skywalker twins that made those two get along better. Rey didn't try to navigate the hallway because Ben and Finn knew where they were going, and before she could even begin to wonder why Luke and Leia would want to see them, Rey was sitting on the same couch as the day before, sandwiched between Ben and Finn. Leia and Luke were standing.

"We're going to be the squad directly assigned to take out Snoke, and Leia and I agree that we should all be on even ground. So," Luke said, reaching to his hip, "Finn, we want you to have something."

In his real, flesh hand was the Skywalker family lightsaber. Rey's jaw dropped.

"We know you've fought with it before, and we know that you aren't a Jedi. We don't care, though. You should have it. It's yours," Leia said. "Also, Anakin agrees that you deserve it. And that's saying something, because he's usually just an asshole. He was iffy on _us_ deserving it for quite some time. And he evidently didn't agree with certain brats having it." Leia fixed a pointed glare at Ben, who shrugged. Rey remembered pulling that lightsaber to her on Starkiller Base as Ben howled that it was his. But it wasn't now, and he didn't seem to mind.

"Thank you," Finn breathed. "I don't know what to say." He took the lightsaber from Luke's outstretched hand and turned it on. He gave it a curious spin, and Rey remembered that Finn had held his own for quite some time against Ben, even wounding him. Even without the Force or training, Finn was a Jedi to her.

And in less than four hours, the last living Jedi in the galaxy would end the last living Sith.

* * *

A/N: I'm back and writing, writing, writing. I want to have this wrapped up by the end of July, but I can't make any promises. I hope you all are ready for a battle.

On another note, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a Google Hangout Q&A after I finish the fic? Please let me know, I'd love to answer some questions and chat with everyone!


	21. Aquamarine

A/N: I know I usually put this at the end of the chapter, but I feel like that'll spoil the mood I'm building. Anyways, thank you all for reading and commenting and favoriting and subscribing. It really means the world to me. I'm planning on doing a Google hangout sometime in the next two months, so don't be afraid to leave questions for me in the comments or tweet them to me belowtheprecipice. You are all the very best readers, and I thank you all for coming this far. Enjoy.

* * *

Ben insisted on taking his ship to Naboo to sneak Leia, Luke, Finn, Rey, and himself in. His reasoning, to which Leia agreed, was that in the middle of a battle, if a First Order ship appeared, Stormtroopers wouldn't even think of the possibility that the ship could be carrying enemies. And so, four hours after the war council, Ben found himself at the controls of his ship, listening to Rey and Luke giving Finn a very quick lesson on how to best wield a lightsaber.

"You did fine on Starkiller Base, really," Rey said. The green blade of her lightsaber was on, possibly to make sure she didn't damage the ship from doing anything _too_ spectacular during this quick training. "All you have to do now is connect to it."

"Okay, connect to a magic light sword that Luke's severed hand was holding onto for a while," Finn said. The Skywalker lightsaber— _no_ , Ben corrected, _Finn's_ lightsaber—was on, and Finn was idly moving it in his hand. Ben would almost say it was cruel to give him the lightsaber only hours before the invasion, but Finn did have two blasters his hips, so Ben knew that he was going to be fine. The scar across his shoulder, courtesy of Finn, was also reassuring.

"Y'know, I still want to know how Maz got a hold of that," Luke said, rubbing his beard. His lightsaber sat on his hip, undisturbed. Ben was almost excited to see his uncle in combat. The great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker was rumored to be quite the duelist, but Ben had never seen Luke do more than simple sparring with his students. Even with age, Luke could have still retained the talent he possessed in his youth.

"I think we all do, but right now we need to focus on making sure Finn can use a lightsaber," Leia said from her seat along the wall. She had changed into a brown outfit and opted for one long braid down her back as opposed to her usual general outfits and elaborate hairstyles. Ben recalled that Padme Amidala had also been known absurd hair. Perhaps it was hereditary.

"Right, yeah," Finn said, nodding. He assumed a position that looked more like he was ready to use his lightsaber as a club and swung at Rey, who easily deflected him. Ben didn't feel that it was entirely fair that Finn was going against Rey Kenobi, who had apparently earned a _Master_ rank. Ben felt as stunned as Rey looked when he heard the title leave his mother's mouth, but he swelled with pride. And really, there were only four—possibly five, because Ben believed, without a doubt, that Finn was Force Sensitive—Jedi left in the galaxy, and Ben supposed that that made all of them Masters in their own right.

As Rey was to bring her blade back, Finn made a risky move and kicked her foot out from under her, and she stumbled backwards. Finn brought his blade down again, this time knocking Rey backwards into the wall. She looked impressed.

"You could win against someone who's trained because you don't fight like you have a technique, and that could be a huge advantage in there," Rey said, deactivating her lightsaber.

"That's how you won against me," Ben said. "Raw talent can trump technique sometimes."

"No one's gonna suspect me with a lightsaber, because the only person who's dueled me is in this ship right now," Finn said, pointing at Ben with his lightsaber. Ben was sitting in one of the piolet's chairs, arms folded, and very much not ready for a lightsaber aimed in his direction. He glared at Finn, trying to say _I very much don't like you_ with only his eyes, although he had to admit that he did hold a great deal of respect for a Stormtrooper who defected from the First Order, broken into the control center of Starkiller Base, and managed to wound Ben in his first duel.

Rey pushed Finn's lightsaber hand down, bringing the blade dangerously close to the floor until he deactivated it.

"You could really use the element of surprise by using your blasters until getting close, and that's when you bring out the lightsaber," Ben suggested, and Finn nodded thoughtfully. Ben had vowed to _try_ to be nice to Finn because he was Rey's best friend, and Poe's soulmate, and also because he couldn't have been that bad of a guy. Stars, if they both made it out of this battle, Ben was going to get to know him. And that was a promise.

"How long until we land on Naboo?" Leia asked, and Ben swiveled in his chair to check the dashboard. As he did, he wondered how his father would have liked the sleek First Order ship. He seemed to be fond of pieces of junk ships like the _Falcon_ , but Ben knew that he loved anything new and ready to be alerted and abused to Tatooine and back. Between Ben and Han, several innocent ships had been sent in for repairs and unable to fly for months. Leia hated seeing good ships go to waste, but Ben was sure that Anakin would have been right in the cockpit with the Solos if he was able to. Or maybe he was, being a creepy ghost bastard.

Ben just hoped that maybe he wouldn't turn into a creepy ghost bastard too soon.

"About two hours," Ben said, reading neat text from a box above the hyperdrive. Leia nodded and stood from her seat.

"I'm going to take a nap," she said. Ben knew that she meant meditate, but to some people (Leia, Rey, most of the galaxy), there wasn't much of a difference. Before she headed to the bunks, Leia crossed the ship to Ben's seat and kissed him on his forehead.

Ben also hoped that that wasn't going to be the last bit of affection he ever received from his mother. It was a painful thought, but he couldn't help it. Leia and Luke were orphans twice over, and Ben couldn't even bear the thought of not having his mother.

And then Ben looked at Rey, who spun her deactivated lightsaber just for kicks, and he wished that she could know what was going through his head. He wished that he wouldn't have to go through the difficult process of turning his thoughts into words that weren't insensitive or cruel, which was a skill he had forced himself to lose in the previous decade. It would have been easier to just allow Rey to read his mind, to share his feelings. Just like she had when he had slipped into her mind in that interrogation room.

He checked the text box again. They had two hours. Two hours to learn a new skill. But if anyone could do it, Rey could.

"Rey, I want to teach you something," Ben said.

"Are you ready?" Rey asked as the ship left lightspeed. She was sitting next to Ben, prepping the ship for a covert landing. The rest of the Resistance fleet was ahead of them. Ben would land the ship about ten minutes after the roof landing took place.

Ben didn't know how to answer Rey's question. Was he ready to fight? Yes. But was he ready to charge into a battle where he could lose _everything_? No. Not even close. He had been memorizing Rey's face for the past few minutes from the corner of his eye, drinking in every detail he could, telling himself that even though it was completely unnecessary, he needed to know how her eyes crinkled when she smiled. It was so cruel, he thought, that Rey had become such an important part of his life such a short time before they could be torn apart.

"Ben?" Rey prompted, and Ben made the mental note of _big eyes that ask questions without her having to speak_.

"I don't know. I just don't want to think about it too much," Ben said, but that was a lie. The part of himself that he had created over the previous decade, the part of him cloaked in the Dark side, wanted to envision the whole fight, from the second his foot left the ship to the moment Snoke's head rolled across the floor ( _because whatever the hell Snoke is_ , Ben reasoned, _he can't take a severed head and live_ ). General Hux might have been the strategist for armies and attacks, but Kylo Ren could envision whole battles and think up several different outcomes. He might not have always been right, but at least he was prepared.

"Yeah, yeah, me too," Rey said, fingers idly drumming on the metal dashboard, and Ben made a note of that in his head, too. Did Han do this whenever Leia decided to leave to settle a territory dispute? Did Leia dig up mental notes on her husband when she awoke to an empty bed?

"But," Rey said, "No matter what happens, I'm so glad about everything that's happened these past months." And Ben had to agree. Every regret, every sin, every betrayal was in the process of being forgiven. If could kill Snoke and end this war, he wouldn't be a criminal, he wouldn't be Kylo Ren, he wouldn't be living in shame.

 _But can I forgive myself_?

Ben was looking at Rey, really looking at her, and wondering about how he could have ever begged Anakin to take her away, how he ever could have hated her, how he could ever for a second deny that he _loved_ her with every fiber of his being.

He froze.

He _loved_ her.

They were moments from walking into what could be a suicide mission, a mission where they could be ripped from each other, and he had just had a soul shattering realization. Ben Solo loved her. He loved her so much that it almost hurt to not say it to her face right there, but he forced himself to not say it. Not when they could die so soon.

So instead he took her hand in his and smiled as best he could, considering that half of his face seemed to be permanently stuck in a scowl. Ben didn't mind. He had deserved it. He had deserved much worse.

"Not matter what happens, I'm so glad that I met you and all of this soulmate bullshit happened," Ben said. He hoped she understood. He hoped that she knew that he loved her. He hoped that he would be able to tell her.

And he set the landing sequence.

It was time for battle.

The palace was in chaos when Ben landed the ship. The roof invasion seemed to have gone off without a hitch, so Ben vowed to congratulate Poe if they made it off of this planet alive. Resistance fighters were everywhere in sight, battling Stormtroopers. Ben carefully navigated his ship to the back end of the library, noticing the aerial battle in the distance. It was early evening on Naboo, and the setting sun offered a beautiful light to watch the battle in.

"This is it," Luke said as the ship touched the ground. No Stormtroopers rushed them, no ships flew above to shoot them down, no one fighting for the First Order even seemed to notice them, and Ben counted it as a small blessing. He opened the hatch and stood in line with the twins, Rey, and Finn to rush out of the ship.

First thing to do was to break into the library through the very small, very old door. Above them, blasters fired and soldiers screamed in pain, but they were practically invisible as they sprinted to the door and Leia activated her lightsaber. It was a brilliant, bold shade of light purple that Ben had never truly seen in anything other than gray, and he thought that the color matched his mother perfectly.

Leia stabbed through the door's lock and Finn kicked it open, creating a loud bang that Ben was sure no one would hear. He knew the First Order, and he knew that they didn't give two thoughts to the precious and rare holos stored in the library. The small group filed in, and Rey closed the door behind them. Without an activated lightsaber, the only light in the library trickled down from the skylights several floors above.

The group followed Ben as he led them between shelves, remembering the time he had spent in this very library scouring for holos about Padme Amidala. Ben wondered what she would have to say about the destruction raining down on her palace. He hoped she wouldn't have minded—after all, she had been at the front lines of the previous battle of Naboo. She might have even insisted on coming with them to take Snoke down herself.

To his left, Ben saw Rey running her fingers over the holos as she walked, scattering ancient dust into the air. He could practically feel her desire to sit down and activate as many as she could. If they lived, and if the library survived, Ben would spend days upon days with her in the library, reading histories about the Jedi and the Sith and their families and the galaxy itself.

The doors out of the library were wide open and unguarded, and Ben felt his senses sharpen. He knew the way to the throne room from here, but it was across the palace, and he couldn't predict how many Stormtroopers would be skulking about the hallways, waiting for Resistance forces to breach the walls.

"The next two hallways are clear," Rey said. She and Luke jogged ahead, leaving Ben to wonder what Rey's clever mind had done this time. Ben moved with Leia to his left and Finn to his right, lightsabers deactivated but in hand. The sound of their shoes slapping on the tile seemed to sound to him, their light breathing too loud. Didn't they know Snoke probably knew they were here by now? Didn't they know that they should try to maintain some element of surprise against him?

Rey stopped before turning another corner and closed her eyes. Ben felt the Force bend toward her and he was _floored_ by how quickly she had learned to bend it to her will. How long had that taken him? How many years?

"A group of seven coming toward us, directly on the path to the throne room," Rey said, opening her eyes. She moved her lightsaber from her back to her hands and gave Leia a crisp nod. The women charged ahead, leaving Ben, Finn, and Luke to follow a few yards behind.

"What is Rey doing to predict the hallways?" Finn asked as he ran. His lightsaber was in his right hand, his blaster in his right. A few months before, Ben could only picture as Finn as another opponent to fight, another enemy to strike down. Yet there they were, running beside Luke to catch up to Rey and Leia and charge into a battle.

"I think she's able to see the layout of the palace and everyone in it," Luke said. For an old man, he sounded very in shape. Ben supposed it was a Jedi gift.

"Stars," Finn said, and Ben agreed.

Ben saw the group of seven then, and when he looked closer, he could see Hux's orange hair at the front of the group.

He had always hated Hux.

He hated the way that he walked with such arrogance in his step and spoke with such superiority in his voice. Ben hated how was always striving to push him down, to make Ben _less_ than him. There was no doubt in Ben's mind that Hux had volunteered to personally take out Ben and the others.

Ben took quick, long strides, and he managed to deflect Hux's first blast into the wall with his blade. A second shot didn't follow. Hux stood two yards from Ben, his feet firmly panted, his gun still pointed to Ben and Rey. His face was an ugly sneer.

"I could have hit that," Rey said, inches behind Ben.

"I know, that was just to piss him off," Ben said.

"So nice of you to return, Ren," Hux said, venom dripping from his voice. "And you've brought your family and fellow traitors along. It's too bad that you'll all be dead so soon." Ben heard several lightsabers activate and safety locks pulled back. His eyes were locked with Hux's, and he was considering ripping through Hux's mind right there. He wasn't Force sensitive in the slightest; there was no way he could fight it off.

Years of hatred and scorn floated to the top of Ben's mind, all focused around Hux and his cruel intent to be Snoke's favorite, the head of the First Order, the feared General. Armitage Hux had wanted nothing more than to be the First Order's pet for years, and now he had done it. Ben hated him.

Ben charged and Hux fired again, and this time the Stormtroopers flanking Hux did the same. Blasts ricocheted off of lightsabers into the walls. Rey was beside Ben, spinning her lightsaber so fast that the green and blue blades morphed into a single colored blur. Hux was shooting, but nothing was landing on Rey or Ben. Really, it had been an unfair fight from the start.

Within moments, the Stormtroopers who had entered beside Hux were dead on the ground, and Hux's neck was inches from Ben and Rey's blades. The lights stood out on Hux's pale skin, turning it a pale blue.

"You have no idea how badly I want to run my blade through your neck," Ben snarled, meeting Hux's eyes. Hux, much to his credit, did not look away.

"Then do it, coward," Hux shot back. "Or are you going to let your soulmate have the honor? She did get a lucky shot in with you, perhaps she can make this painless for me."

Ben's blood ran cold. Next to him, Rey tensed.

"Do you think I'm some sort of half-wit? It's incredibly obvious right now. Even the Supreme Leader would be able to see it if he were here right now," Hux said, finally looking away from Ben to look at Rey, and something on his face made Ben's hand itch to carve his throat open.

"So, do it, Ren. Or you, scavenger. I don't particularly care which of you does it," Hux said, turning his head to give a better view of his neck. Rage was running through Ben like lightning, and he moved his hand forward to kill Hux, but his mother wrapped her warm hand around his, stopping his lightsaber.

"General Armitage Hux, you are a wanted man by the Resistance," Leia said. Ben looked down to his mother and saw the cold, menacing expression she had become so well known for. Men in the senate were said to have feared for their lives when Leia Organa glared at them. General Hux, however, showed no fear when he met her eyes.

"General Leia Organa, what an honor to finally meet you in person," Hux said, his voice the same calm it had been moments before. "What are you going to do? Kill me yourself? I suppose you are an improvement from your piece of shit son." Ben was tempted to break from his mother's grip and kill Hux right there.

"Actually, I'll be taking you back to the Republic to try you for your crimes. But, seeing as how it'll be hard for us to move through the palace and drag you around, we'll be leaving you here until we're done," Leia said. Hux rolled his eyes.

"And how do you propose doing that? Chain me to a wall?" Hux said. Leia looked to her son and nodded, and Ben held out his left hand and took a firm grip of Hux's mind. Even with three lightsabers pointed at his throat, Hux was truly calm. Ben had no interest in perusing through Hux's mind any further than that initial observation, and so he waved his hand and felt Hux's consciousness slip away. His head hit the floor with a satisfying _thud_.

Rey knelt beside him, and with Finn's help, dragged him to a small alcove below a window.

"Will he stay unconscious until you wake him up?" Leia asked. Ben turned his head an observed the fallen Stormtroopers. Luke was standing among them, eyes closed, his face not betraying his emotions. Ben couldn't even feel the Force betraying his emotions. When he thought of it, when he really took a second to think, Ben figured that maybe he should feel some remorse for the loss of life that was taking place around him, but he didn't. He couldn't anymore.

"Yes. He'll be right here when we're done with Snoke," Ben said, and then the group was running again, Rey and Ben at the front.

They were so close to Snoke, and Ben's nerves were beginning to jump over the fact. He supposed that he had always been so close to Snoke. He couldn't remember a time before Snoke's voice whispering into his ear, invading his dreams, promising him things he could have never achieved without the help of the Dark side.

 _No more_.

"The throne room is around the corner," Ben said, coming to a halt. Rey practically slid to a stop next to him.

"There's a large group coming for us from that direction. I think they're coming to make sure we won't enter the room," Rey said.

"We'll take them," Finn said, stepping forward. With a lightsaber in one hand and a blaster in the other, Ben had to admit that Finn looked like quite the soldier. Phasma should have promoted him when she had the chance. "Ben and Rey, you go take out Snoke. We can handle this."

"I agree," Luke said. "We'll keep any First Order from entering the throne room while you two go in. I have faith in both of you." Luke was looking directly into his nephew's eyes, and Ben remembered how many times Luke had told Ben that he had faith in him, how many countless hours Luke had spent training Ben, how many years Ben had looked up to Luke and longed for his approval.

"We have to move now, they're getting closer to the throne room," Rey said.

"We have to get there first," Finn said.

And the group was running again, and Ben no longer cared for how loud their steps were, because he knew that Snoke was aware of how close they were, and that he had already sent Hux and others to fight.

The group passed several balconies as they ran, and Ben remembered watching sunset after sunset in vivid colors he didn't yet know. Outside, just beyond those balconies, Ben could hear screaming and blasts and the sounds of war. He caught a brief image of the aerial war, and he hoped that Poe would make it out of this, even if he couldn't.

They kept running until the grand doors to the throne room were in sight, and that's when they separated.

"May the Force be with you," Ben yelled. He heard his mother's voice, but her words were drowned out by the sound of the doors to the throne room opening. It was wide enough for Ben and Rey to slip into the room, but once they were inside, the door shut behind them, creating an eerie silence. There was no one else in the room aside from Ben and Rey, but ben could _feel_ Snoke in the room with them.

"What is that?" Rey asked. She was beside Ben, looking around the room. He could feel the fear rolling from her voice, and he couldn't blame her. Snoke's aura was filling the chamber, and Ben felt the usual urge to _run_.

But where was Snoke?

"That's his presence," Ben said, staring directly at the throne. He remembered being in this very chamber, months ago, after Starkiller Base, to train in the ways of the Sith. He could still feel Snoke's torture running through his body. He could feel the cold marble pressed against his cheek as he writhed in agony. That was when he had first seen Rey, truly seen her, standing above him, forcing him to stand, to live.

The room was lit by the dimming sunset, and without any activated lightsabers, the chamber was dark, filled with purples and blues. The debris Ben had stepped across months before still littered the floor, and when he looked closely, he could still see the stained glass window of a beautiful woman. It was as if the room had been uninhibited since Ben had left.

The light from the sunset disappeared suddenly, leaving the room in only a faint glow, and Rey cried out, falling to her knees.

"Rey?! Rey, what's wrong?!" Ben said, kneeling beside her. She clutched her head, making noises that were barely human. Her eyes were rolling, and pain radiated from her. The bond in Ben's chest was alight in pain, but all he could think of was Rey.

"Get out—get out of my head," Rey panted. Ben _felt_ Snoke appear in the room at that moment, and Ben turned to find the Supreme Leader on the throne, head resting on one hand. Months of separation from Snoke had not made looking at him any easier, and Ben felt sheer terror run through his veins. Though, this time, the terror wasn't for himself.

"Let her go," Ben said. Rey groaned again, and Ben remembered how it felt for Snoke to roam through his mind with intent to harm. He remembered how helpless he felt and how much it _hurt_. Ben elected to stop looking at Snoke and focus on Rey, who sweat from the mental torture of Snoke invading every crevice of the mind.

"Why should I, Ben Solo? Her mind is so delightful, so _colorful_ ," Snoke said, his voice worse than anything Ben had heard. It was poison, running through Ben's veins. How had he survived as child when, every night, this voice would ooze into his dreams, whispering promises of power and glory? How had he ever been strong enough to not recoil in terror at hearing the voice?

"She truly is incredible, I see why the Force destined you two as soulmates," Snoke said, and Ben froze, his mind halting. Of course Snoke knew, he was reading through Rey's mind like some disposable holo.

The threat was too obvious for Ben to ignore. Snoke _knew_ , and now that he knew, he had learned Rey and Ben's weaknesses: each other. And Ben knew this. He knew Rey could be killed right there, on her knees in pain, if Snoke wanted, and Ben would follow soon after.

But Snoke was not a creature of simplicity.

Rey stood up, but Ben remained on the ground. Her eyes focused as her hands reached for her lightsaber.

"I can't control my body," Rey said, terrified. "Ben, I'm not doing anything." Ben stood then, and he grabbed his own lightsaber. He knew exactly what game Snoke was playing.

"I know," Ben said. "I know it's not you." Had Ben not known the power of the Dark side, he would have tried to talk to Rey to break Snoke's control on her. He would have tried to reason with her. He would have tried to do anything besides fight her.

But he knew the Dark Side. And he knew that the Dark Side was too strong to break through with words alone.

"I don't want to do this," Rey said. Her voice cracked. "I'm sorry." She drew activated her lightsaber. Ben activated his own.

"I forgive you," Ben said, and Rey charged at him.

They had sparred so many times on Ahch-To, spent so many hours learning the movements of each other's bodies. Ben would know Rey by the way she spun her blade, by the way she planted her feet, by the way she rained down her blows, and he knew that he was not fighting Rey.

Ben was used to Rey's harsh, powerful movements, to her dirty fighting tricks, and as they dueled in the throne room of Naboo, Ben fought Snoke as he controlled Rey's body through fluid movement. Rey's face was contorted, and Ben knew she was trying to break through Snoke's mental hold.

Ben's blade met Rey's blue, and he quickly adjusted his grip to block her green blade. Rey was quick, quicker than Ben, regardless of if she was in control of her body or not. Ben blocked and parried, blocked and parried. He couldn't attack, he wouldn't attack. He wouldn't hurt Rey while she couldn't even defend herself.

Ben blocked another attack aimed for his chest and spun his lightsaber in his right hand.

"She's going to win," Snoke said. _I'm going to win_ was what he meant to say. Ben didn't break his concentration on his duel with Rey. Hadn't he wanted this, all those months ago? Hadn't he wanted to duel her once more? Rey swung for his head and he ducked, and she lunged for his feet and he jumped. She aimed for his back and he brought his lightsaber over his head to block her, and then she turned her body to cut his front, and Ben brought down his blade to stop her.

Kylo Ren had wanted this so badly. He had clung to the very idea as if it kept him alive

Ben Solo wanted nothing more than to stop the entire duel.

He didn't know what to do to break Rey free from Snoke's grip. She would have to do it alone. Her face was pained yet determined, and he knew that the physical duel was only half of what Rey was fighting through at the moment.

When Rey tried to bring her lightsaber down again, Ben grabbed the hilt, just above her hands, where he could feel the tiny flowers she had carved, and blocked half of her blade with his own. He remembered standing in the snow of Starkiller Base in something similar to this pose, and he couldn't help but think of the irony.

"Listen to me," Ben growled, trying to hold his ground, "You can do this, Rey. You can get him out of your mind. You're stronger than him. You're stronger than the Dark Side. I know you are." Rey locked eyes with Ben, and the colors from their clashed blades intensified, the bond in Ben's chest pulled, and Ben felt tethered to Rey. Determination was alight in her eyes. Ben loved her. He loved her so much. He knew it could be his downfall, to love her in that moment, but he didn't care.

Ben had imagined fighting her countless times during his stay on Naboo, but he had never pictured a scenario where he was completely defensive, not trying to aim a single strike on Rey. When she broke free of his grip, Ben stepped backwards, and Rey spun her lightsaber, the colors blurring as she advanced. Her lightsaber circled her body—in front of her, behind her back, above her head—and Ben was trying to pick a way to disarm her. If he could just disarm her, she could think Snoke out of her head. He decided to try and reach for her forearms to knock her lightsaber out of her hands.

Ben lunged.

His eyes met Rey's.

She screamed.

In a moment of perfect clarity, Ben saw the plain terror and horror written across Rey's face as she brought her blade down, quicker than Ben could react to, and sliced Ben's right hand clean off.


	22. Mint

Rey's head was pounding. She hurt from the inside, from a place she shouldn't identify, as Snoke used her body like a puppet. She fought against him harder than she ever had fought for anything, because it was _her_ mind he was invading and _her_ body he was controlling _her_ , and she wanted him _out._

In the throne room on Naboo, when Rey brought her lightsaber down, she cut off Ben Solo's hand. It was his right hand, the one holding his lightsaber. She watched in horror as the hand fell to the floor and _rolled_. She listened in horror as Ben screamed.

Rey had lived the first nineteen years of her life in constant shades of gray, and she had never known why, so she had never questioned it. Even when she met someone who saw the world in color, Rey had not questioned why she had never seen colors. She didn't care. All she wanted was her family and her safety.

So, when she had seen colors, Rey didn't question why, she just assumed. She assumed that they had nothing to do with Kylo Ren. And she assumed wrong. The colors she had discovered and came to love so dearly had everything to do with Kylo Ren. And eventually, they had everything to do with Ben Solo.

Rey shrieked as she watched the blue and green colors of her lightsaber turn to different shades of gray. She couldn't feel her right hand at all. Ben was on the floor, holding his arm to his stomach, groaning, and Rey stood above him, shrieking because _she_ had done that and she couldn't even kneel beside him to apologize or comfort him. He was her _soulmate_ and she couldn't even do that. It was her body and she couldn't even do that.

 _get out get out Get Out GET OUT_

The bond in her chest was an inferno, igniting her whole body into a furnace hotter than any desert on Jakku.

 _OUT OUT OUT_

She was rooted to the spot, watching as Ben looked up to her through his hair, as if waiting for the next blow. As if waiting for her to kill him.

 _GET_

 _OUT_

A pressure slipped from Rey's head and her knees buckled from under her. She felt her body return to her control as Snoke fled her mind, and she could have cried because it felt so _good_. From behind her, Rey heard Snoke inhale sharply. Even though Rey hadn't had seen him yet, even though her curiosity was morbid, she didn't dare look. She crawled over to Ben.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Ben. Stars, I'm so sorry oh Force, no," Rey said, words tumbling from her mouth. Tears blurred her vision as her eyes met Ben's. It was too dark to tell if there was any color in the world, but Rey would have traded all color to take back what had just happened. Their bond sparked in Rey's chest, and she brought her hand to Ben's face. She still couldn't feel her hand, but she didn't care. He leaned into her palm. And there, with both of them covered in sweat and filled with anguish and pain, Rey knew that she loved Ben Solo in a way she could never articulate.

"I'm so sorry," Rey repeated, trying not to cry.

"It's not your fault," Ben choked out. There was a foul smell around him, and Rey could have wretched when she realized that it was the smell of burnt flesh. She had done that to him.

"Incredible," Snoke said, and his voice chilled Rey to her bones. Reluctantly, she tore her eyes from Ben's and turned to face Snoke.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she was to face. Was Snoke human? Was he another breed of lifeform? Was he an abomination? Rey didn't know. She felt nauseated by the look of him, and the pit of her stomach seemed to drop. The first thought to run through her head was to run, but she couldn't. Not when the fate of the galaxy was dependent on what happened in this room.

Snoke stared at her from his throne. Rey stared back from where she knelt next to Ben.

"You broke free from my control. No one, especially not the disappointment beside you, had ever done that," Snoke said, his voice echoing from every wall. "Perhaps you could have been my legacy."

"No," Rey snarled. She pulled herself to her feet and braced herself. A small sound from behind her let her know that Ben had moved to be directly behind Rey. How low he had fallen, to use another as a shield. But Rey would do it. She would protect him. She would protect everyone in her forsaken galaxy.

Her hand was slowly regaining feeling, but her lightsaber had rolled several feet away. Ben's lightsaber was lost to the shadows.

"I wonder," Snoke said, still staring from his throne, his skin an eerier white glow, "is it your own training or that bond that allowed you to break my grip?"

"I am Rey Kenobi, and your reign of terror and hatred and the reign of the Sith end tonight," Rey said, her words coming from somewhere she didn't know. Her voice sounded more confident than she felt. But she knew she spoke the truth.

Snoke's face twisted into something akin to a smile.

"Such spirit, in spite of what I have seen in your mind," Snoke said. "I have seen everything your mind has to offer. Your precious hopes and dreams, your deepest fears and regrets. I saw all of those colors you have experienced these past months, and I saw every moment between you and Ben Solo. I know what you felt. I even saw a glimpse of those parents you never knew."

The unfairness of it almost made Rey charge Snoke right there. She couldn't picture Laila or Zavil, but Snoke could. Snoke had seen memories that Rey couldn't access, memories Rey didn't even know she _had_ until Obi Wan had told her about them.

"Tell me, _Master_ Kenobi," Snoke sneered, "do you think that the Sith does not lurk in your veins? I know you. I know you deeper than your soulmate ever could. Do you think that you are pure, that you could not fall to the Dark Side? You could. You have emotions that the Jedi despised. You hate, you love. Those are the core emotions of the Sith, Kenobi."

"I am a Jedi, and nothing I feel changes that," Rey said, her voice and mind clear. Someone weaker would have fallen into Snoke's mental games, but Rey wasn't weak.

"Pity. You were destined for greatness," Snoke said.

"Fight me yourself," Rey said. "Stop dancing behind words and using me as your puppet."

Rey saw the shift of his hand before he raised it, and she pulled her lightsaber into her hands just in time to block Snoke's blast of Force Lightning. She hadn't known that a lightsaber could protect her, but it was the first idea that came to mind.

The lightning was a brilliant, brilliant blue—Rey's favorite color. She had seen lightning before. Jakku's odd weather carried electric storms over some of the Northern deserts surrounding Rey's home. She had laid in the sand for hours, watching the lighting dance from cloud to cloud, almost inviting nature to strike her as she laid defenseless.

But this lightning, Force lightning, was unnatural. It was cruelty in physical form. Rey could feel the Force singing in pain around her as it bent to Snoke's will.

Her arms trembled as she fought to deflect the lightning away from herself and Ben. In an ideal situation, Rey would have turned her blade at a perfect angle and shot Snoke's own lightning back at him, but the blast was too strong.

"Ben," Rey said. _I'm going to move. We need to think of a plan_.

"I know," Ben replied. They were connected. Ben had made sure of that on the ship. He could slip into her mind just as easily as she could move into his. Ben thought that their soulmate bond could be opened and utilized, especially with Rey's talent involving the Force's connection to the mind and Ben's preexisting use of mind connections.

He had been right.

Ben's presence in her mind felt deeply different than it had when he interrogated her on Starkiller Base. It had hurt then, to have him in her mind. It had been a stranger forcing his way in. But now, given that Rey had allowed him to enter, it felt comfortable. Like idly holding hands or sitting together without speaking. It felt like Ben was just _there_ with her.

Rey shifted left as Ben rolled right, and she took the lightning with her, away from Ben. However unsure she was about how long she could hold the lightning, Rey wasn't going to let go. She couldn't, because what else would she and Ben do?

They hadn't planned for this. There was no way they could have. Ben was down a hand, which meant that Rey was down a partner. Taking on Snoke one-on-one was not part of any hypothetical plan.

Snoke released his lightning for a bare second, and Rey sprinted away, eyes never leaving Snoke. When he shot at her again, Rey was hiding behind a column, and the stone was the only casualty. What was left of the column seemed to vibrate in the aftermath of the blast.

"How very clever," Snoke said. His voice was everywhere. "But you cannot expect to hide from me. It is over, Kenobi. You lost. Accept your death with grace so you can join the rest of the Jedi with some dignity."

Blue and green light glowed from Rey's lightsaber. Though she couldn't see Ben, those colors let her know he was alive. The bond in her chest was still alight. When she closed her eyes, Rey could see the layout of the palace, and she could see Finn and Luke and Leia outside of the throne room, fighting so that Rey and Ben could have a chance to win. In her ear, Rey heard her grandfather's voice, repeating the words she had heard so many months ago.

 _Do what I failed to do_.

Rey jumped from behind the column and leapt to a balcony overlooking the throne, allowing the Force to wrap around her and carry her to safety. Months ago, she had done something similar on a cliff with Luke. His training was not for naught.

This time, Rey was ready when Snoke fired lightning at her, and she angled it to attempt and hit Snoke, but she was a few feet off, and the blast was too strong for her to move. She couldn't see Ben, even with the lightning throwing a cutting blue light over the room. But she knew he was there. She could feel it.

Still without a plan, Rey struggled to keep the Force lightning at bay, waiting for Ben to slip into her mind with some insane plan to end it all. She couldn't think with death dancing only inches from her face.

"Your talent is impressive," Snoke said over the lightning, "but you are a weak, foolish girl. You fall for the same mistake of Luke and Anakin and countless Jedi before you. You refuse the Dark side. Let it in, Kenobi, and you might stand a chance."

Rey could barely focus on his words. The lightning seemed grow stronger by the second, and Rey's muscles were beginning to tremble from exhaustion.

 _Ben, can you do this? Can you shoot lightning?_

Almost instantly, Ben responded to her thought.

 _No,_ Ben thought, _it's a talent reserved for true Sith. You have to focus your hate and anger to generate the lightning_.

Rey couldn't reply with a comment about how unhelpful Ben's answer was, so she elected to swing her lightsaber and duck, if for nothing else but to give herself a moment to _think_. There were very options Rey could see.

Make a suicide jump and hope to stab Snoke at the same moment his lightning struck her.

Flee from the throne room with Ben, if they could even make it that far.

Fight a duel that would result in her death, and possibly kill Ben, too.

But had Rey thought of a plan on Starkiller Base? No. She had trusted her gut, and that had been enough to help her escape from that tiny interrogation room. Trusting her gut had helped her win her duel against Kylo Ren, taken her to the crystals that gave her lightsaber power, convinced her to tell ben how she felt on an impulse.

 _Create a distraction_ , Rey thought to Ben, and she watched as he emerged from the shadows without hesitation. Even though she was trying to figure out a way to escape the throne room alive, Rey took a fraction of a second to be floored by the amount of trust Ben put in her.

"Why do you choose to fight from a distance? Are you too weak to fight like a true Sith lord?" Ben shouted. Snoke immediately focused his attention on Ben, and Rey began creeping closer to the balcony, still on her stomach. Even from her angle, Rey could see that Ben was holding his right arm to his chest.

"I trained you for so many years. For a time I thought you to be my prodigy," Snoke said, his voice echoing throughout the chamber, raising the hair on Rey's skin. She was still moving, still getting closer, still trying to think of _something_.

"For a time, I did, too," Ben said, and Rey couldn't believe how _brave_ he sounded. "But I learned that the Dark side is not the way." Rey looked down, and she saw that Snoke's back was turned. He was looking only at Ben.

"You are weak," Snoke snarled.

"Maybe," Ben said, "but I know that I am on the correct side of the Force."

Rey had an angle on Snoke. Should she drop down and swing her blade, Snoke's head would roll. It would all be over.

She stood up, prepared to jump. There was no room to second guess herself. Ben was still talking. Rey couldn't make out what he was saying over the sound of blood roaring in her ears, but she could hear his voice, and that was enough.

As she draw her lightsaber, Snoke turned, and Ben screamed, and Rey braced herself to be hit by lightning, but the light that filled the throne room was green, not blue, and it was Snoke's screams that echoed through the chamber instead of her own, and it was from Ben's hand that the lightning was shot.


	23. Plum

Something about Snoke's screaming was not human. Ben had expected as much, but he wasn't prepared for a sound similar to a shrieking ship to erupt from Snoke's mouth and fill the chamber. His scream raised the hair on the back of Ben's neck and sent chills through this whole body. He wanted to clap his hand over his ear, but it was impossible, because the lightning causing Snoke such agony was coming from Ben's remaining hand. Ben was _making_ the lightning. He could feel the power racing through his veins.

Snoke told Ben during his training that in order to generate Force lightning, he needed to focus on his hate and anger, but that never worked for Ben. Perhaps because he wasn't a true Sith, Ben had never shot lightning, even after agonizing over it for hours and hours. After cursing himself and begging his grandfather for help, after thinking of everyone and everything he had once claimed to hate. Try as he might, he just couldn't hate enough.

Instead, Ben was holding onto the need to protect. He needed to protect Rey from Snoke's lightning, but even more than that, he needed to protect Leia and Luke and Finn, who would be the next people for Snoke to go after. After them it would be Poe and the rest of the Resistance, and then it would be the whole galaxy. And Ben needed to protect all of them. He had to. Yet, not once did he think of protecting himself. He was willing to die, so long as he would die protecting everyone else.

He would protect everyone because it was all he could do. It was the only way he could repent, and Ben didn't care if anyone would forgive him. He could finally forgive himself.

He could forgive himself for even following Snoke in the first place, for betraying Luke, for allowing whole planets to die while he stood by, for harming his soulmate, for murdering his own father. For causing such imbalance in the Force, for ruining the galaxy. All of it, forgiven at last.

Rey watched from the balcony, lightsaber in hand, bathed in the brilliant emerald light. Ben couldn't blame her for remaining stuck to where she stood, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up the lightning. It drained him, and he was already so weak from his duel with Rey.

 _Now_ , Ben said through their bond. And Rey didn't hesitate for a second, just as Ben hadn't hesitated when Rey had said that she needed a distraction. She leapt from the balcony and spun in the air, activating her lightsaber as she did. Snoke was on his knees, screaming and screaming and screaming. His arms were limp beside him, and his back was arched in a way that suggested to Ben that it was breaking. Just as Rey was about to turn her body and strike, Ben let go of the Force, and the lightning ceased.

Rey took Snoke's head off in one clean strike.

She landed at the same time his head his the floor and rolled twice before coming to an end. His body collapsed into a heap. A weight lifted from Ben's shoulders, and he realized that Snoke's presence in the Force was the weight; he was just so used to it that he hadn't thought about it. And now it was gone, and it was gone because Snoke was gone. His head was a few steps away, nothing more than the severed head of a once living lifeform. Rey walked to it and rammed her lightsaber through his temple.

"I needed to make sure," she explained. Ben just stared.

So many years of his life had been spent serving the body before him. He had been deluded by the promise of glory and power, and the very creature that promised him that was on the floor before him. Supreme Leader Snoke had ruined Ben Solo's life by turning him to the Dark side and away from anything and everything good about and around him. He had turned him into a murderer.

And now Snoke was gone. Ben felt… free.

He strode to Rey and kissed her hard. He kissed her like he needed her lips on his to be able to take a breath, like he had found water in an endless desert, like he would never see her again. He kissed her like it could purify all of the evil and hate in that throne room, and she kissed him back with the same passion.

"We have to go," Rey said, breathless. "We have to stop the battle."

"We won," Ben said. It was all over now. The galaxy was safe and there was balance in the Force once more.

"Let's go," Rey said, and Ben held out his good hand—his _only_ hand—and wrapped the Force around Snoke's head, levitating it. There was no way he or Rey was going to touch it. There was no blood, but with a lightsaber amputation, there never was.

Rey ran to the doors and pulled them open, and the eerie glow of the throne room dissipated, leaving only the faint light from the fires from battle to lead their way.

"Wait," Rey said, and she stuck out her hand behind her. Ben's lightsaber flew into it, and without saying anything, Rey carefully put it in Ben's belt. He would have left without it had Rey not remembered.

"Thank you," Ben said.

"Don't worry about it. Everyone else couldn't have gone too far," Rey said. She stepped out of the throne room and looked to her left, and then to her right. She paused, closed her eyes, and pointed to the right. Ben followed her down the corridor, still holding Snoke's head with the Force. It wasn't the most strenuous thing to do with the Force, but he was so tired that it seemed to take more effort than usual.

Noise leaked through every window in the palace. Screams, blasts, shrieking planes. When Ben looked outside, he saw a battlefield where the courtyard once was. Planes appeared in and out of view, and Ben hoped that Poe's plane was still airborne.

Leia saw Ben before he saw her, and as she approached him, she gasped. That's when Ben noticed she was just down the hall, when he heard his mother's small, shocked gasp. Snoke's head was floating just behind him.

"Your hand," Leia said. "What happened to your hand?" _Oh_ , Ben thought, _she doesn't even care about Snoke right now._

"It's a long story, mother. It would be better to tell you when the battle's over," Ben said. He looked at Luke and Finn, who were exceptionally covered in blood and sweat, and saw them starting intensely at Snoke's head.

"So that's him," Finn said, nodding to indicate the head. He was staring at it with scrutinizing eyes. "That's Snoke. That's the Supreme Leader."

"Yeah," Rey said.

"He's just about the ugliest thing I've seen in the galaxy," Finn said, and Ben laughed. And laughed. And he kept laughing when Finn joined in and Rey giggled and Luke smiled and Leia shook her head in exasperation. Finn and Ben laughed until Ben's sides hurt and he realized that he couldn't even pinpoint why he thought what Finn said was so funny. He hadn't laughed so hard in… he couldn't even remember when he last laughed like that. Probably before he left Luke's training.

"We still have a battle to end," Leia said, and Ben and Finn pulled themselves together. Finn pat Ben's shoulder as he finished laughing. Rey stood in front of both of them, a small smile on her face.

"Ben, you come back with Luke and me to the ship with Snoke's head. We need to get into the air and force a surrender, and you're injured," Leia said. "Rey, Finn, go find Chewbacca. He's somewhere out there leading the ground strike. Let him know we won so he can spread the news." Rey and Ben nodded like soldiers, and Luke pulled them into a tight hug.

"It's over," he whispered. He let them go, and Rey turned and hugged Ben. Even though Ben held his right arm to his chest, she didn't seem to care. She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

"I'll see you soon," Rey said. Ben wanted to hold her there, to his chest, and keep her there for as long as he could.

"Stay safe," Ben said. Rey smirked at him as she pulled away, and that was a face that Ben would go to war over.

"I always am. It's you I have to worry about," Rey said, gesturing to his stump.

 _Now_ , Ben thought, _I could tell her that I love her right now_. He opened his mouth to tell her, but no words came out. He couldn't shake the feeling that they were still in danger, that this wasn't the right time, that it would be better to tell her when they were safely heading back to Endor.

"Bye, Rey," Ben said, and he kissed her quick on the lips. It wasn't passionate like the kiss in the throne room or over the top like their first kiss. It was a goodbye kiss, a kiss that promised many, many more kisses, a kiss that said 'to be continued'.

"Bye, Ben," Rey said, and she and Finn turned and left, no doubt using Rey's map-layout Force trick to get them to the battle. Luke pat is nephew on the back.

"Let go, I can take it from here," Luke said, and Ben let the Force unwind around the severed head and allowed Luke to hold it in the air by his control instead. And Ben was so, so tired. He didn't realize it until he wasn't using the Force for anything and could let himself relax. He felt tired into his bones. How long had he even been on Naboo? Half an hour?

"We can leave through the library," Leia said. "Ben, lead the way back." The trio walked back through the empty, silent palace.

"How many soldiers did you have to fight to guard the throne room?" Ben asked, and Luke looked to the side. Leia kept her eyes forward, obviously on the lookout for anyone else. But Ben—and no doubt Luke and Leia—could feel that no one was coming. Everyone in the palace with either dead or unconscious.

"Too many," Leia said. "We expected to fight Stormtroopers, but we weren't expecting so many. And, with Finn next to us, it was a bit unsettling to think about who was behind those helmets." Ben could only imagine. He knew that Stormtroopers were _people_ because of the times he had met to casually discuss plans with Phasma, and she could be quite funny if she wanted to be. Which she usually didn't. Regardless, Ben and her had spoken both casually and while completely intoxicated. And needless to say, Ben was unable to look at Stormtroopers the same way after.

"Up ahead," Luke said, pointing to a tiny alcove. Ben could see a pale hand sticking out from behind the wall. Hux's hand. Ben had almost forgot about him. He wish he had. Nothing gave Ben more pleasure than the image of Hux suffering a harsh awakening at the hands of Chewbacca and his ground force.

But, instead, Ben and Luke hoisted Hux's arms over their shoulders and began dragging him along. Ben had no trouble supporting Hux's weight, but he could see Luke struggling. Luke was old, and most likely out of training, and he was already using the Force to carry Snoke's head. Ben doubted that doing both was easy on his uncle.

"You can let me take care or this, Luke," Ben said. Luke almost looked offended at the suggestion.

"You have one hand and only half of my experience, so I will help you drag this useless lump back to the ship," Luke said, practically red in the face. Ben wanted to laugh at his uncle, but he was so serious that Ben was almost afraid to. So he let Luke help him drag Hux, in spite of the fact that Ben was sure Leia would have been more help and in better shape.

"What happened in the throne room?" Leia asked.

"Snoke took control of Rey and forced her to duel against me," Ben said. He still felt that absolute reluctance to do anything offensive against her. "And she took off my hand."

"That's not a fair right," Luke said, frowning. He spoke clearly despite carrying Hux's weight.

"This is war. Nothing's fair," Leia said. "Using Lando to hand over Han to lure you to Cloud City wasn't fair, but Anakin did it anyways. And cutting off _your_ hand wasn't fair either."

"You make a good point," Luke said.

"When she cut off my hand," Ben continued, "she broke out of Snoke's control and he began shooting lightning at Rey. So she jumped to the balcony and I distracted Snoke so she could make the attack. But Snoke noticed her. And I shot lightning to protect Rey."

Ben still couldn't figure out how he had done it. Admitting it to Luke and Leia made it sound even more ridiculous. He wasn't Sith, and he didn't even feel anger when he shot lightning. By all means, it shouldn't have been possible.

Luke abruptly stopped walking, but Ben took a few more steps before realizing this, and so Hux fell from his shoulder and landed face-first on the stone floor. Ben wanted to feel bad for the bastard, he really did.

"Lightning?" Luke said, in awe. "You actually made lightning?" Ben nodded as he struggled to pull Hux over his shoulders, guessing that Luke wasn't going to be much help carrying the general anymore.

"Yes. But it wasn't like the lightning from Snoke—it was green, and I didn't feel any hatred or anger when I was shooting it, and that's what Snoke always told me that I needed to feel," Ben said. Hux weighed more than Ben anticipated, and it was hard to hold him stead with only one hand, but Ben figured he would manage.

"Electric Judgement," Leia breathed, astonishment filling her voice. The doors to the library were in sight.

"Stars," Luke said, staring at Ben.

"What is Electric Judgement?" Ben asked.

"It's the Jedi half of Sith lightning. Before the Empire, Jedi Master Koon shot it during a mission and the council was conflicted about how to feel," Leia said, "but Koon eventually decided that it wasn't of the Sith and that it was a useful technique. But, he was the only known Jedi to ever use it… until now."

"We tried for years to use Electric Judgement, and neither of us could do it," Luke said. "But you did it. And you did it because you wanted to protect instead of harm."

"I still feel like it shouldn't be possi—," Ben said, but then a pain in his chest brought him to his knees. It felt like something had crushed his ribcage. He could hardly breathe. He let Hux roll off of his shoulders as he clutched his chest. Luke and Leia were beside him, asking what was wrong, but the ringing in his ears was too loud to hear them and he couldn't take a proper breath to answer. Something was crushing his chest.

When Ben opened his eyes, the world was in black and white.

"Rey," Ben choked. Months ago, the same thing had happened when she nearly drowned, but the colors returned after a few moments. But the bond in Ben's chest was pulled taunt and pained him, and he knew that something was terribly wrong. And then, the bond disappeared, leaving him with only a hollow sensation where the bond had been.

"Ben? Ben, what's happening?" Luke said.

The only reason that the colors could be gone and the bond would let him know that something was wrong would be if Rey…. Panic flooded through him.

"Rey," Ben gasped, this time louder. He forced himself to stand in spite of the ache in his chest and the hollow area in the middle of it. _Rey Rey Rey Rey._ He needed to get to Rey. He needed to help Rey. He needed to help his soulmate he needed to help her she needed help he needed to find her—

"Oh no," Leia said, and she grabbed her son's arm. The palace spun around Ben as he struggled to his feet. He could hardly breathe, he could hardly think. All of his thoughts reduced down to Rey's name.

"We need to get to Rey now," Leia said, pulling her son into the library. Ben ran with her, but he didn't feel like he was inside of his own body. Luke followed them, levitating Hux behind himself alongside Snoke's head. The library, too, was spinning around Ben and everything felt like it was too close, too hot, like it was closing in on him and that he would be buried beneath the holos without ever finding Rey.

The ship was open and waiting as they burst through the door, and when they all entered the ship, Ben stood at the rear, where the hatch would close. Wind brushed his face, and the world stopped spinning with every breath of fresh air he took. He didn't want to think about how he could smell death in the air.

He didn't want to imagine if Rey was part of the death.

"Don't close the hatch," Ben said, his voice not his own. Too breathless, too quick. "I'll look for her from here." The ship rose above the ground, and whichever of the twins was piloting had listened to him and kept the hatch open. Ben wrapped his hand around a handhold and braced himself for a shift in balance and increase in wind as they flew over the battlefield.

He just needed to find Rey. He just needed to help her. He just needed to know that she wasn't dead on the battlefield below like so many others. Ben couldn't feel the bond and he couldn't try to call for her down the bond. He was helpless.

So many bodies— both First Order and Resistance— were scattered throughout Naboo's courtyard, unmoving. Soldiers stepped over them as if they were mere obstacles. Ben didn't see Rey by the stone staircase and balcony he had fallen from so many months before, he didn't see her in what was once the grand garden. He couldn't locate Finn either, and he knew that Finn would never leave Rey behind.

His hand shook. He gripped the handhold tighter.

 _Rey._

 _Rey._

 _Rey, where are you?_

"Ben, look, over in the center of the courtyard!" Luke shouted from the front of the ship. Ben looked, and he could see a large, furry figure— Chewbacca. And then Ben looked closer, noticing that Chewbacca was holding something in his arms— no, not 'something', Ben realized with a new rush of fear, but _someone_. Finn stood next to him, wildly waving to signal the ship.

"Bring us low," Ben said, crouching. The ship came closer to the ground, and Ben could hardly keep himself from jumping through the air to get to Chewbacca, because he knew that Rey was in his arms. Even without a proper look, even without a bond to tell Ben that he was getting close to Rey, he knew that was her. That was her, unmoving, wrapped in Chewbacca's arms like a corpse—

Ben was going to be sick.

The ship didn't land, but it came close enough to the ground that Finn pulled himself into it with a jump, Chewbacca following by pulling himself in with one arm. The other was still holding Rey. Ben collapsed onto the floor of the ship.

Ben didn't care about the possibility of being hit by a blast or being pulled from the ship to the ground and battle below, because Chewbacca was laying Rey in Ben's lap, careful with her, as if she was a sleeping child. The hatch doors closed slowly as they rose into the air, but Ben didn't care, because he could feel Rey's chest move as she took quick, shallow breaths. She was alive. Ben didn't know what happened, or what would happen, but he didn't care, because Rey wasn't dead.

Blood dripped from her nose and down her cheek. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. It was in shades of gray, not the usual brilliant red Ben had grown used to. But, if Rey wasn't dead, why weren't Ben's colors returning? Why did his chest still feel so hollow?

Chewbacca sat on a seat attached to the wall, staring at Ben with a gentle expression that Ben thought he was never see again.

Barely able to choke back a sob, Ben met Chewbacca's eyes and asked, "What happened?"


	24. Crimson

"It's over," Luke whispered to Rey and Ben. There, wrapped up in Luke's arms, Rey could almost imagine what it would have been like to grow up loved and hugged every night. Had there not been a battle raging outside of the palace, Rey would have wanted to stay in Luke's arms for much longer, but there was a battle to stop and a war to end.

Luke let go of her and Ben, and Rey stood on her toes to kiss Ben on the cheek and hugged him. He was holding his right arm to his chest, and Rey didn't want to think about his lack of hand and how it was her fault. She knew Ben would never say it was, but Rey would think of only of that every time she saw his arms. She had hurt her own soulmate irreversibly.

"I'll see you soon," Rey said, and there was no doubt in her voice or her mind. Luke was right, it was all over. No more war, no more Snoke, no more Sith.

"Stay safe," Ben said, and Rey could have laughed as she pulled away. After all, which of them was missing a hand while the other was perfectly fine? Which one of them had suffered from a hallucination so bad that the other was able to find them based on their screaming? Who had wounded who in their first duel?

"I always am. It's you I have to worry about," she replied, acknowledging Ben's missing hand. Although still absolutely horrified, Rey hoped that trying to make light of the situation instead of wallowing in her guilt would be better for both her and Ben. She could spend years apologizing to him, but what good would that do? They had already moved past so much between each other— from Ben abducting and interrogating Rey to the vicious scars on Ben's face courtesy of their first duel. Besides, Ben was smiling down at her, his eyes filled with emotion.

He looked like he wanted to say something to her, and Rey thought for a split second that he might be telling her that he loved her. And in that second, Rey worried about what she would say. Because she did love him, she loved him so much. She knew that when he leaned into her touch after she took off his hand. The issue was that she didn't know if she'd be able to properly express just how much she loved him. Even thinking about it jumbled her thoughts and made her stomach flip.

But, instead, Ben said, "Bye, Rey," and kissed her quickly. She wished that she could have made the kiss longer or deepened it, and maybe she wished that she could have been the one to say that she loved him, but, first, she needed to end this battle and stop this war. Then, there would be much more time for kissing Ben Solo.

"Bye, Ben," she said in return, and she and Finn took off to find Chewbacca. Rey knew the path; she could see the entire palace in her mind, and she could see everyone it. She could see Chewbacca at the center of the courtyard, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, all in battle. She could see Hux's unconscious form back toward the library. She could even see Snoke's lifeless torso back in the throne room. But, most reassuringly, she could see Ben, Luke, and Leia as they made their way to the library, unharmed.

"What do you think will happen when this is all over?" Rey asked as they ran. She hadn't thought about the question, but it slipped out, and she knew that it was a very valid question to ask. Finn considered this for a moment before answering, his footsteps echoing in the hallway alongside Rey's. His were much heavier.

"I'd like to go out into the galaxy and help rehabilitate freed Stormtroopers. It might be easier to change their ways if they meet someone who knows what they've done and how they've lived. I know that Poe wants to help end any fighting in the Outer Rim and eventually join the Galactic Senate," Finn said, and then he added, "Just like Leia. Leia's going to have to work her ass off to get the galaxy under control, but she can handle it. And Luke's gonna go back to his island and return to hermit mode."

Rey could clearly picture Finn helping change Stormtrooper's lives— as he had already changed so many lives, including her own. He was kind and understanding, but then also determined and headstrong. Changing thousands of people's internal programming required just that. And Poe… well, Rey didn't know too much about the Senate, (or politics at all, for that matter), but she knew that Poe would be successful at whatever he desired. And if what he desired was the follow in Leia's footsteps, then he would do just that.

The thought of Leia leading the galaxy to peace was a thought that truly made Rey happy. And the thought of Luke on his island alone was a joke. Now that Ben was in the Light again and he had made peace with Leia and he had a padwan, Rey knew that Luke wasn't returning to his life of isolation.

"And what about me?" Rey asked, because she really didn't have the slightest idea. She had never thought that far ahead in her life— ever. Jakku made her plan day to day and never look ahead a week, a month, several years. Even training with Luke meant she never planned that far— sure, she knew that she would one day have to help stop Snoke, but she never pictured it as an actual moment.

So now, with the ability to plan her future however she wanted it, Rey was unsure. She knew she wanted _more_ , but she didn't know what she wanted more of. She knew that she wanted to learn about everything in the galaxy, but she didn't know where to start. And she knew she wanted Ben by her side, no but's about it.

"Well, you did say that needed to get back to Jakku," Finn said, smirking. Rey rolled her eyes and smiled.

"But really," Finn continued, "what do you want to do when this is over?"

"I don't know," Rey said, and then she paused for a second to think. They were now close to the grand staircase leading into the courtyard.

"I want to see the galaxy," Rey said, decisively. She wanted to see everything— planets made up of the ocean and planets of great spanning cities. She wished to see the places of legendary battles and duels— Hoth, Mustafar, Coruscant, Bespin. And she needed to go to Tattooine, she needed to see where she was born and where her parents died.

Her parents. The people she would never remember. What would they say to their daughter? Would they be proud? She knew that her grandfather would be.

"Then," Finn said, staring out over the open space of the courtyard, over the gore and carnage of battle, "you should go. When it's all over, take Ben and go. Come with me to see the Stormtrooper regiments, go with Poe to the Outer Rim, go with Leia to Coruscant. And then, go with Ben to anywhere you want. Rey, go and see everything there is. You deserve it all."

Rey surged forward and hugged Finn, and even though the battle was ongoing just before them, Rey felt like she needed a moment just to hold Finn close. Her best friend. Her absolute best friend in the whole galaxy. Through thick and thin, she knew that they would always have each other.

"Now, let's go find that walking carpet," Finn said as they separated. Rey's lightsaber was strapped across her back so she could run faster, and Finn held the Skywalker saber in his hand. Rey figured that she would have to outrun any blasts her way and hope that Finn could block any surprises.

They raced down the steps, and Rey tried her best to not focus on the sounds of screaming and pain. No, she had a goal, and the goal would end all of this. No one would have to die anymore.

Chewbacca, much to his credit, was hard for Rey to miss. She could see him from half a courtyard away, right in the middle, roaring as he fired at snipers in the terrace. Before meeting him, Rey had only heard about Chewbacca in passing— a background character in the adventures of famous smuggler Han Solo. But, as Rey learned from Luke, he was so much more: a war hero, a powerful ally, a legend to the Wookie. And there, in the middle of battle, Rey could see it all become truth.

She stared at his power and strength as she ran, and Rey imagined what it must have been like to be Chewbacca. To have lost your best friend. Finn as still running next to Rey, dodging blasts, and that was enough to drive her depressing thoughts of Chewbacca from her head.

Blasts were flying all around her, and Rey was hoping that the Force was making them miss her, or maybe Stormtroopers really were terrible shots. Either way, she was lucky. She had always been lucky. Born lucky, lucky to survive, full of lucky shots and hits, lucky, lucky, lucky.

Chewbacca was a few yards away when he spotted them, and he must have seen the light in Rey's eyes, because his features lit up, and he roared in an entirely different way than Rey had heard moments before in the middle of battle. And she was so _damn_ happy to see Chewbacca so overjoyed, to know that the war was over, to allow herself to think that everything was going to be okay now.

Rey didn't see the pulse canon charging up behind her. Even if she did see it, she couldn't have known what it would specifically do until she disassembled it and looked. She wouldn't have known about how it was designed to kill by stopping the heart with an electric charge and break her back with the force of impact.

But she didn't even see it, for she was too lost in her joy.

Rey did feel the blast hit her back and knock her breath and consciousness out from her.

She did feel her ribs break and her back bend at an unnatural angle. She did feel absolute horror as her own colors disappeared before her eyes as her vision scrambled. She did feel her heart stop.

For a terrifying moment, Rey felt herself die.

But, she did feel the Force wrap around her, and seep into her skin. She felt it restarting her heart, keeping her alive, keeping her spine intact. She could feel it as she slipped into a dark, dark sea somewhere both inside and around her, as the sounds from battle faded away, as all the pain in her body evaporated.

Rey was already elsewhere when Finn and Chewbacca began screaming, and by the time Ben reached her and cradled her bleeding, broken body in his arms aboard the ship, she was too far gone to know any of this was happening.

* * *

A/n: Would you believe that this is the shortest chapter in the fic?

Thank you all for sticking with me through all of this and reading when I publish. All of your comments are so kind that I'm honestly considering printing them out and keeping them in a binder to re-read.

I hope to see you all again soon.


	25. White

The first time Ben had been inside of Coruscant's largest infirmary, it was because of an assassination attempt on his mother's life.

It happened inside of the Senate, while Leia spoke on behalf of Luke restoring the Jedi temple to its former glory from before Anakin's assault on it. The Empire had taken steps to ruin the temple while keeping it standing as a constant reminder of the Jedi's failure.

Leia had delivered an hour-long speech with an unwavering voice and a sharp tongue. No one spoke or moved to interrupt her. This was not the first time she had spoken before the Senate, and it certainly wasn't her last. Just as she was to move the Senate into a vote, she was shot.

In retrospect, she was very lucky. A Stormtrooper had snuck into the Senate, and he had shot from only a few yards away. He missed her heart and had instead hit her shoulder. Stormtroopers were never good shots around Leia, for reasons that she had always hinted to Ben were because of her Force-sensitivity.

Leia jumped off the podium and collected the man's head herself. That was the first and only time she had ever used her lightsaber in public, and it frightened several Senators to see how precise and deadly she could be. Some said that she reminded them of her father.

After beheading the rogue Stormtrooper, Leia was rushed to the infirmary. The vote was unanimous, and her motion passed.

Ben watched the whole incident unfold. He had been ten years old.

The intensive care area was very different than the long-term wards. For one thing, the intensive care area was bustling with droids left and right. There was never a moment of silence there. But, in the long-term wards, droids only came to visit once a day to supply Rey with nutrients and to make sure any toxins were leaving her body correctly.

No droid could figure out why she was in a comatose state. They all agreed that she shouldn't even be alive. Luke and Leia brought in top healers from all over the galaxy to examine Rey, but every one said the same thing: aside from her broken ribs and slightly fractured spine, there was nothing wrong with Rey. She just wouldn't wake up.

As for the colors, no one could give an answer as to why they were gone if Rey was still alive. Even in cases of critical injury, the colors would temporarily disappear, but, as everyone told Ben, Rey's injuries weren't critical enough to warrant the absence of colors for such a long period of time. Some healers said that it was because she was still unconscious, but they all were confused about the colors not returning. They all tried to pat Ben on the shoulder and reassure him that Rey would be fine— because, apparently, he was no longer seen as a threat to most people's wellbeing, a fact that was deeply unsetting and foreign to him—but Ben shrugged off their hands and refused to reply to their false reassurance.

News of Rey's heritage took the public by storm. Obi Wan Kenobi had always been a figure of hope to those who opposed the Empire, along with being a war hero and a Master Jedi. Learning that he had a granddaughter, and that his granddaughter had killed the Supreme Leader, was more than the Republic could have ever hoped for.

The knowledge of the Ben Solo and Rey Kenobi bond spread through the Republic like wildfire, and they're the talk of every trashy tabloid holo was constantly stocked in the hallways of the infirmary.

Ben wouldn't sleep. He hardly left Rey's bedside, and eventually the droids brought him a cot to sleep in, but he just couldn't sleep in her room.

Sometimes, when the exhaustion took it's hold on him, he would leave and return to his apartment nearby. It had belonged to his grandmother so many years before, and no one had occupied it since Padme had died. The owner of the building had practically thrown Ben the keys when he first came to inquire about the apartment. Ben slept on the couch, facing a window that showed the large building housing Rey. When he woke up, it was the first thing he'd see.

Without colors in his world, Ben was very disoriented. He never realized just how used to them he had become. And the fact that every morning, when he opened his eyes, Ben saw only blacks, whites, and grays, let him know that one sad, horrible truth remained constant: Rey was still gone.

—

Three weeks after the Battle of Naboo, Luke sat beside his nephew in Rey's room. Neither said anything for a long moment and instead watched Rey's chest rise and fall with her breathing. She was still alive, and that provided some comfort to the Skywalker men.

"General Hux will be facing trial before the Senate in two days," Luke said. Ben didn't look at him, only nodded. His eyes, as always, were fixed on Rey. If Ben slowed his own breathing and mediated, he could feel the Force wrapped around his soulmate.

Sadly, Ben was unable to use their bond to speak to Rey. He had tried several times after he was sure that he could feel the Force moving through her, but it felt like he was talking to a wall. And besides, he had no way of knowing if she would even be able to reply.

"Leia wants you to attend the trial," Luke said somewhat awkwardly. Ben heard him shift in his chair.

"No," Ben said immediately. He balled his hands into fists, still unnerved by how his robotic hand felt the same as his flesh one. The droids had treated his hand the moment he landed on Endor. Chewbacca had to practically pry Rey from Ben's arms to let the two of them be attended to.

"You wouldn't have to speak unless you wanted to—"

"I'm not going," Ben said, looking at his uncle from the corner of his eye. Luke stared at Ben, but his stare carried none of the threat that Leia's did. His uncle was always the nicer, calmer twin. And because of that, Ben was grateful that Luke delivered this message instead of Leia.

"You're not a criminal anymore," Luke said carefully. "You saw it yourself when we first got here: people aren't afraid of you. If anything, they want to mob you."

Ben remembered that all too well. Rey had gone ahead to the infirmary while Ben accompanied his mother on her personal ship. The second they touched down, the ship was swarmed on all sides. Faces were pressed against every window, hoping for a glance of Leia Organa, her (in)famous son, and Luke Skywalker. It took Chewbacca shooing away the crowd to even get the doors open. Even then, some reporters had waited nearby to ambush Leia, Ben, and Luke for pictures. Needless to say, there were many broken cameras and several mind tricks involved that day.

"I don't want to see them," Ben said. "It's been hard enough trying to get some privacy for Rey. You know we've changed rooms three times already because of people trying to break in."

"But, you didn't try and hurt them," Luke said.

"I was very much tempted to," Ben said. And it was the truth.

The first time, it was a teenaged girl who snuck into Rey's room in the middle of the night. Ben found her the next morning in his chair, curled up and asleep. He wasn't entirely sure how to react to that, so he simply fetched the droids and had the girl removed quietly. She stared at him in wonder the whole time she was led out.

Then, there was the old man who got into the room while Ben was speaking to his mother in the hallway. The man was clutching Rey's hand when Ben returned to the room. There was a crazed look in his eye,and Ben was reminded of the word _fanatic_. That time, Ben didn't bother getting a droid— he escorted the man out himself, all the while with the man yelling for Ben to get his filthy Sith hands off of him. The other patients didn't so much as pay him a second glance.

The third time this happened, Ben ended up crushing a table in his rage. It was a group of three men, with their hoods pulled up over their faces, standing on all sides of Rey's bed. Unlike the girl who Ben assumed meant no harm and unlike the old man who was a fanatic, these men obviously harbored more malicious goals. They tried to shove Ben out of the room when they noticed him. It was, of course, a futile idea, as Ben threw all three men into the hallways without so much as breaking a sweat.

But, Luke _was_ right. Ben didn't hurt anyone too seriously.

"That means you're starting to turn away from your Sith teachings. Impulses come and go, and you just need to learn when to ignore the more harmful ones," Luke said. Ben just wanted him to stop talking, and Ben didn't want to think about how he was going to have to go to Hux's trial no matter what. He just wanted Rey. He wanted her to wake up and smile and laugh and throw her arms around his neck and kiss him until he was dizzy.

"What, like running away when the galaxy needs you most and having a fifteen year pity party?" Ben snapped at his uncle.

Luke said Ben was beginning to ignore all of his harmful impulses.

He was wrong.

Luke was silent for a long moment. Ben wanted to hate himself for his nightmarish tongue. He wanted to hate himself for pushing away Luke, who was surely suffering with Ben. He wanted to hate himself for always doing this, for always hurting the ones he loved.

He couldn't stop hurting people. Luke with his academy of Jedi, Poe in that interrogation chamber, Rey and Finn on Starkiller Base. Leia, always Leia, always being hurt by her own son.

Ben thought of his father's face on the bridge.

He was a weapon made only to hurt.

"I'll come to retrieve you in two days," Luke said. He stood up, making little noise, and left the room.

Ben stared at Rey. Her chest still rose and fell. Her heartbeat was still strong from the monitor.

If she had heard what Ben had just said to Luke, she would have been an inferno. She would have told him exactly how much of an asshole he was being and to get it together. That thought was almost enough for Ben to hope that she did hear him, that her eyes were about to fly open and she would roll over and really give it to him. Anything besides her just lying there like a corpse forced to live.

But instead, she only breathed.

—

True to his word, Luke collected Ben two days later. He said nothing. He hardly looked at his nephew.

Ben felt the cold sting of regret. He wanted to say something to his uncle, but the words were trapped in his throat.

Ben kept his eyes on Rey until he and Luke left her room, and Ben found himself face-to-face with armed Republic guards in front of her door. They nodded once to Luke and once to Ben and then returned to keeping an eye on the hallway. Ben was sure that no one would enter her room until he returned. It should have been a comforting thought, but he couldn't feel anything except the words 'I'm sorry' sitting at the back of his throat, begging to be released.

The pair was silent all the way to the Senate. Their speeder landed at the secret entrance hidden from reporters. Republic soldiers from stared as Ben and Luke walked inside, but Ben supposed that he couldn't blame them— long lost Luke Skywalker and turncoat Ben Solo were two people that these men never thought they'd see in person.

Ben was dressed in a fine tunic and pants of two different shades of gray, which he assumed looked fine together, as Luke hadn't made a comment. Admittedly, it would have been easier to dress in all black, as that didn't require Ben to guess at what color he was wearing, but black reminded the Senate of Kylo Ren, and he couldn't have them making that unconscious association. His hair was combed back and his face was fully visible, which Ben was still getting used to. He had just grown so used to his mask over the years.

Luke looked every bit the Jedi in his classic style robes. His lightsaber, like Ben's, was attached to his left hip. He had cut his beard shorter, but he hadn't shaved. Someone had pulled his hair into a hard knot at the back of his head. Luke radiated an aura of authority and wisdom.

They were led into a chamber below the Senate hall, and that was where Ben saw Hux. Two guards flanked him, as if he might run, which Ben thought was ridiculous, as his hands and ankles were restrained. Ben knew procedure, and he knew that the restraints would be removed only when Hux would be escorted to his platform inside of the Senate, but until then, he would be chained like any common criminal.

He looked thin, starved, and washed out. If possible, he looked paler than before, though that could be Ben's inability to see color. He wore his uniform, but Ben could plainly see that it was now too large for him and fit poorly. Even his glare looked exhausted when he directed it to Ben.

"Hello, Ren," Hux growled. Ben met his stare and saw the hollows under Hux's eyes.

"That's not my name," Ben said. Hux scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"You can hide behind your family name and soulmate, but that doesn't change who you are, _Kylo Ren_ ," Hux sneered. "You were still one of us when you betrayed your uncle. You were still one of us when you slaughtered so many innocent people. You were one of us on Starkiller Base when your poor old father walked onto that bridge. You were especially one of us when you tried to kill your soulmate. I'm glad that one of my Stormtroopers managed to do what you couldn't—"

Hux was unable to finish his taunt on the account that Ben's fist had just closed and was now cutting off Hux's windpipe through the Force. Hux choked for air, and Ben could feel the very life and Force flowing through Hux, growing more desperate ever second without air. No guards moved to help Hux or stop Ben.

Ben suspected that if he were able to see color, his whole field of vision would be red. His own heart was hammering in rage. The Force moving through Hux's body was beginning to slow down.

He wanted to kill him then and there.

"That's enough, Ben," Luke said suddenly, sharply. Out of the corner of Ben's eye, he could see Luke's face contorted in anger. Ben said nothing to his uncle.

"Ben, let him go," Luke said, this time taking a step toward his nephew. Ben wondered if Luke would draw his blade to stop Ben from doing this. That might be the only way. Hux looked like he was able to pass out, and Ben felt everything inside of the General slowing down. Just a little tighter, and it would all be over.

He had always hated this man. From the second that he set foot into Snoke's throne room, Hux had always made it his goal to prove that Ben was nothing but a weak, worthless creature. And now, even as Hux was moments away from what could be a death sentence by the Senate, he still dared to test Ben.

In his rage, Ben hadn't heard Leia approaching from behind, and he didn't know she was present until she put her hand over Ben's. He was so startled at her sudden appearance that he didn't resist as she pushed his hand down and unclenched his fist. Ben's grip on Hux's windpipe relaxed, and the General gasped for air, coughing repeatedly.

"We need to go to our platform," Leia said. It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order. Ben allowed himself to be led away with him mother and uncle, suddenly nervous about what his mother would say. Leia was not a cruel woman, but she often showed no mercy at times where she deemed it unneeded.

The trio walked down the hall, not speaking, as they drew close to a waiting Senate platform. Leia stopped a few yards shy of it and turned to her son. Without even examining her face too closely, Ben could tell she was furious.

"You tried to kill him?! In the Senate?!" Leia hissed. "What were you thinking?!" Ben had no answer, he just met his other's eyes with no emotion. He couldn't explain to her the rage, the years of pent up anger, the sudden impulse to kill.

"We are moments away from his trial, and you tried to kill him. Who the hell do you think you are? His judge, jury, and executioner?" Leia continued, jabbing her finger into her son's chest. "You have no right!"

"He deserved it," Ben said coldly. A surge in the Force from Leia nearly knocked him backwards.

"How dare you! He taunted you and you decided to react like a youngling and choke him until he was nearly unconscious. You are nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum," Leia said, every word like a dagger. Ben hadn't been reprimanded by his mother since before he left to train with Luke.

"Leia," Luke said, ever the mediator. "Hux said that he was glad Rey was dead," Luke murmured, and then he quickly added, for Ben's benefit, "which she isn't."

"And you think that justifies Force-tantrum murder?" Leia said, and she glared right into Ben's eyes. "People lose their soulmates _every day_ , and you don't see them running around and killing everyone who brings it up to them! I've held it together for months without so much as pulling a mind trick on someone who's told me they're sorry for my loss!"

Ben knew, inherently, that his mother would not cry. He knew that after she lost her whole family, her whole _planet_ , she had run out of tears to shed. So Ben knew, standing there in the halls belong the Senate, that this was as close as his mother would ever come to crying.

"Did you think it would be easy? To see the world without color? Loving someone is never easy, Ben! It's not easy to love! And it certainly isn't easy to suffer loss, but those of us who have the entire Maker-damned _galaxy_ on our backs have to keep moving! We have to keep putting on a brave face and pretending like there isn't a gaping hole in our chests, because there are people looking to us, depending on us, and we cannot show weakness," Leia said. She was staring so deeply into Ben's eyes that she could have been burning right into into him.

"We cannot show weakness. Skywalkers cannot show weakness," she paused for a moment as her breath caught in her throat, but she pushed on, "not even for a moment, so I suggest that you get your act together, thank the Maker for how lucky you are that your soulmate isn't even dead, just sleeping two miles away, and get ready to walk into this trial with the whole galaxy watching," Leia said, turning her back to her son and walking onto the platform.

Ben stood there, his mother's voice rising in his ears as he absorbed everything she said. He had known long before turning from the Dark Side that his mother suffered when her colors were stolen at his hands, but he never thought about how she mourned, or rather, how she couldn't. Because of course his mother couldn't be seen mourning Han publicly, of course she had to be the calm and collected face of the Resistance, of course she had to show strength in her darkest hour— because she should falter, should she hesitate, should she stop for even one second, the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders would crush her.

And for the first time in twenty-nine years of life, Ben Solo truly, deeply understood that he had never appreciated his mother like he should have. He stepped onto the platform next to her, Luke behind them, and he looked ahead, at the doors that would reveal them to the Senate, and said, his voice shaking at those two syllables, "I'm sorry."

Because wasn't he lucky? Wasn't he lucky to know Rey was still breathing? Wasn't he lucky to have the hope that one day she would awake and colors would spill back into his life? Wasn't he lucky enough to at least be able to look on her body instead of knowing it was lost somewhere in the core of a destroyed planet?

Wasn't Ben Solo lucky?

Leia said nothing, the doors opened, and their platform rose into the Senate. Across from them, a platform carrying Hux and three armed guards also rose into the Hall. Hux was shooting daggers at Ben from where he stood, but Ben didn't have the anger left to shoot daggers of his own.

Around them, the Senate came to life. The trial of Armitage Hux begun.

—

As far as trials went, it wasn't much of one. Everyone knew Hux was guilty, and he had even confessed to his war crimes before coming in, so it was truly a matter of clarifying that _yes_ he had in fact done every awful thing on the list (which was made up of long-named war crimes that made Ben sick to his stomach because hadn't he been beside Hux as he committed all those crimes? Shouldn't he also be on trial?) and then it was about sentencing.

Most of the Senate called for death. Leia, acting as the voice of reason, laid out several options that had all been traditionally used as punishment for war criminals— exile, life in prison, forced labor at an outer rim work colony, and, of course, death. Several senators voted in favor of forced labor, but most everyone else was firm in their belief that General Armitage Hux should die.

Ben looked to Hux from the corner of his eye as yet another senator from some nowhere planet declared their support for Hux's death. Hux had his jaw squared and remained silent, but Ben knew fear when he saw it, and it was plainly written across Hux's face as the votes for his death grew higher and higher. Ben felt no affection for this man, but the look in his eyes when the final senator— the former Princess Caisy of Terroal— threw her support behind the death sentence shattered something deep inside of Ben, something he couldn't name.

Because he knew that that was the moment Hux realized that he was going to die.

Leia readied herself to speak and determine the true number of votes.

Without thinking, without allowing himself time to second-guess, Ben stepped forward, a signal to the whole Senate that he was about to speak. All murmurs stopped. Ben Solo, only son of Princess Leia Organa, only grandson of Queen Padme Amidala, had never spoken before the Senate.

"You call for the death of this man," Ben said, words spilling from his mouth. "And I will not argue that this man is innocent. I witnessed firsthand the destruction and death he brought down upon the galaxy."

Ben was a weapon made only to hurt, but he had been _made_ that way. He had been groomed since he was young to kill and destroy, but no more.

No more.

"But if we are to kill this man, are we any better than the First Order? Are we, as a Senate, any better than Supreme Leader Snoke, sitting atop his throne and deciding who was worthy of life? Are we any better than Palpatine, sending Darth Vader off to dispose of anyone he saw fit?" Ben said, letting the power that ran through his mother and grandmother's veins rush through him, picking the words he needed.

The hall was so quiet that he swore he could hear Hux's ragged breathing.

"I move for a recount of the votes, and I myself enter a vote on behalf of the Skywalker family for a lifelong sentence in Coruscant's high security prison. There, he will live out the rest of his life as a prisoner under the careful eye of the Republic," Ben said. He didn't let himself wonder if this was the right choice, but all he knew is that he was done standing by as destruction rained down. He would answer with mercy. And he knew, from somewhere in his heart, that Rey would have agreed.

Hux was gawking at Ben from his platform, but Ben paid him no mind. He didn't want his thanks. He just wanted this trail to be over with so he could give his mother and Luke a proper apology before returning to his vigil over Rey's bed.

Leis spoke next, her voice steady and true.

"All in favor of a lifelong prison sentence?" Leia asked, and all though the hall, the lights in people's platforms began to glow, a signal of agreement. By the time Leia counted the votes, more than half of the Senate supported the sentence, and Leia handed it to Hux, who again looked like he might damn-near faint. The meeting was dismissed, and Ben ordered the platform lowered before Hux could get out a word to him.

Ben didn't want to ever speak to that insufferable man again. He had just saved his life, so he deserved that small gift.

—

Ben had expected is uncle to visit him that night, but instead, it was Finn. Ben's feet were propped up on the corner of Rey's bed and he held a holo in his hands, watching one of Padme Amidala's speeches to the Senate about trade routes and blockades. It was always about the damned trade routes until the Clone War.

Finn had visited Rey several times, and each time he had entered the room, his gaze lingered on Rey and he seemed to slightly shatter. This time was no different, except that he looked straight at Ben after taking a moment to examine Rey.

"I heard what happened today," Finn said. "That was really… good of you." Ben laughed, and that seemed to break whatever tension Finn had felt in the room, because he also laughed, and Ben felt the Force roll freely through him.

"I, uh, came with some news," Finn said, not entirely awkward but not entirely casually. Ben raised an eyebrow, knowing that it couldn't have been too serious, as it was _Finn_ bearing the news. Finn took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and said:

"Poe and I are getting married."

Ben's jaw dropped, and for a moment he didn't know what to say. Too many emotions rushed through him all at once, but they all condensed into _happiness_ and his face broke into a wide grin.

"Congratulations!" Ben said, and he rose from his chair to hug Finn, which admittedly felt a bit weird, but he got over it because Finn and Poe were getting _married_ and he could have cried.

"Thanks," Finn said, pulling away from Ben, is facing beaming. "We decided right before the attack on Naboo, but there was so much happening afterwards that we didn't want to tell anyone until the dust settled." Ben didn't miss the glance Finn threw at Rey when he said that.

"I understand," Ben said, because he really, really did and by the Maker he couldn't stop _smiling_. "When is this happening?"

"We haven't decided, but we're thinking maybe in the next month. And we're still taking suggestions about where this should happen," Finn said.

"I suggest Endor," Luke said, appearing behind Finn. "The Ewoks do know how to throw a wild party. Congratulations." He clapped a hand on Finn's shoulder, and Finn's smile grew. The Force was radiating off of him, and it was very infectious.

"Thank you," Finn said. "But if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spread the news to everyone else. Poe is off telling Leia. Bye guys," Finn said, and then he quickly walked to Rey's bedside and gently kissed her on the brow.

"Goodbye, Rey. Wake up soon so we can make you the Maid of Honor," Finn said, and then he was gone.

"You know, I once told her that she was your soulmate because the Force wanted her to redeem you," Luke said. He was grinning about as wide as Ben, and maybe Finn's mood really was contagious because Ben snorted at his uncle.

"I bet she loved to hear that," Ben said. He could imagine the argument that followed, and Ben wished that Rey was there to tell him herself about how she wasn't his soulmate just to help him get his shit together.

"She stormed off after I told her, and I had to apologize later, after I was sure she wasn't going to run off again," Luke said, a small smile gracing his lips.

"But," Luke continued, moving into the room and taking a seat next to Rey's bed, sparing Rey a quick look before fixing his eyes on his nephew, "I do think that in a way I was right. It wasn't her job to do so, and Maker knows that she didn't actually make you rethink your choices, but this bond did help you turn away from the Dark side."

"I suppose you're right, Uncle," Ben said. He looked to Rey, taking in her sleeping face, her still-pink lips, her unworried expression. He wished she would wake up then, if nothing else but for the poetic timing. But still, she only breathed.

"She'd be proud of what you did today," Luke said. That actually made Ben laugh.

"Are you kidding? She'd agree, but she'd think I was crazy for doing it. I still think I might be," Ben said. "I can't wait to see the look on her face when I tell her…." A weight settled in Ben's voice as he trailed off, unable to stop the thought that _when_ might actually be _if_. If Rey would wake up, if Rey would see Finn and Poe wed, if Rey would ever come back to Ben.

 _Rey,_ Ben said through their bond, feeling like he was talking into a dead comm. _Rey, where are you?_

* * *

A/N: HEY GUYS. I'm back. I'm alive. I just want to thank each and every one of you for your kind comments and favorites and continued following. I know I can be a pain in the ass with updates, but just know that you are all the reason I do this, and I'm so thankful that I have such kind readers who keep up with me and have faith in me. Y'all are seriously awesome. There are only two chapters left, and I can't make any promises about when they'll be ready, but I hope that they bring the perfect end to this story.


	26. Black

Rey felt warm sand under her body, rubbing against her neck and sinking into her hair. She had just woken from the most wonderful sleep, and she longed to return to it, but something was nagging at her mind, something important. Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep with such a feeling, Rey pulled herself into a sitting position and opened her eyes.

A scene of an endless desert spread out before Rey. But she instantly knew she wasn't on Jakku. Jakku didn't have two suns dancing in the horizon.

"You are very incredible, you know," the voice said from behind her, and Rey jumped to her feet. She turned, and a handsome man stood behind her, with unbound hair to his shoulders, a scar over his eye, and a devilish smile that Rey knew could have charmed old women at the market into giving him free portions.

"Where am I?" Rey asked, taking a step toward the man. She instinctively reached for her staff, ready for a fight, but it wasn't on her back. Feeling very bare and on edge without it, Rey desperately tried to remember where it was. Had she lost it on Naboo? What had even happened on Naboo after she had killed Snoke? Had she been kidnapped and taken here? Something was wrong, something was very wrong, but Rey couldn't place it.

"You are on the wonderful desert planet of Tatooine. I am impressed that you didn't automatically assume you were back on Jakku," the man said with an approving nod. "I would have, considering all the sand lying around."

"Jakku?" Rey echoed. The man before her nodded, his half-smile not slipping. "How did I get onto Jakku? I was…I was just on Naboo. Where's Ben?" Rey reached out into the Force to find her soulmate, but she couldn't feel the Force, couldn't bend it to her liking. Rey's eyes widened as she took a sharp breath. It was as if the Force was gone. She looked to the sand below her feet and tried to move it by controlling the Force, but nothing happened.

"Don't panic, Rey," the man said, he stepped closer to her and planted his hands on her shoulders. Rey looked up at him, jolted by the sudden contact. He was much taller than her, as tall as Ben.

"Why can't I feel that Force?" Rey asked, panic making her voice shake.

"You're part of the Force right now, Rey. More than you usually are, I mean," the man said. Rey felt like the world was pressing down on her as she realized that she was seeing the world in only black, white, and grey. She couldn't see one single color, and she immediately thought something horrifying. She was going to vomit, she was going to vomit right there, because she wasn't seeing color, and that meant…

"Where's Ben?" Rey gasped. "Where is he?" Her knees gave out from under her and she sunk into the sand, breathing so quickly that she hardly took in any air. The man knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders again, but this time she hardly felt it.

She couldn't remember what happened after Naboo. What if she had lost Ben? What if she couldn't remember losing Ben? The bond in her chest felt hollow and for a moment, Rey did truly feel like she was going to vomit.

"Ben is alive, he's fine," the man said. Rey still shook and hyperventilated. She couldn't process what the man was telling her because she could only focus on how he looked _grey_ instead of flesh-toned. "Rey, I swear to you, he is fine. He is on Coruscant with his mother and uncle right now."

Rey took a deep breath. She let his words sink in. Rey calmed herself slightly but not that much. Because she knew that for all of her colors to have gone out for such a long span of time one of them had to have—

In a very small voice, she asked, "Am I dead?" The man shook his head.

"No, you are very much alive," a second voice said. This one Rey recognized, and she looked behind her to see her grandfather standing in the sand. He didn't glow, and he looked as solid and real as Rey when he took a step toward her. Her grandfather, in the flesh.

"You are alive, and I am so proud of you," Obi Wan said, and Rey scrambled to her feet and ran forward into his arms. He felt solid as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. His beard scratched her forehead. She kept telling herself to breathe, because she wasn't dead and neither was Ben, and she needed to not hyperventilate.

She couldn't remember being held like this as a child. Maybe she had needed this for a long time.

"Did you not explain anything to her?" Obi Wan asked over her shoulder. Rey pulled away from him and looked at the other man, who had his hands raised in defense.

"I was going to, but you showed up," the man said, and Obi Wan frowned.

"We discussed this. If you appeared to her first, you were supposed to introduce yourself and clarify neither she nor Ben wasn't dead first and foremost," Obi Wan said, and Rey watched the man roll his eyes, his grin still shining on his face.

"My apologies, Master. She first asked where she was, so I just answered her question before anything else," the man said, and something clicked in Rey's mind. _Master._ Obi Wan only had one padawan, and that padawan was—

"Anakin Skywalker," Rey breathed, remembering now a vision from months before of Anakin speaking to Leia. Now, knowing who he was, with him standing clearly in front of her, she was able to pick out all of the little similarities that proved all the Skywalkers were related to him: his light eyes were the same as Luke's, his confident look mirrored Leia's, and his entire ensemble reminded Rey deeply of Ben— from the hair, to the scar, to the all-black clothes. But that smile was his alone.

"In the flesh," Anakin said, dipping his head. "Well, I shouldn't say that."

Obi Wan smiled affectionately at Anakin, and Rey remembered about her grandfather's soulmate bond. There, looking onto his face as he looked to Anakin, Rey could plainly see the love written on Obi Wan's face. Anyone could, though they might not have attributed it to the soulmate bond. But Rey knew, and because she knew, she could see just how deep and true her grandfather's love ran, and she wondered if she looked like then when she saw Ben.

"Did you not tell her where we were?" Obi Wan asked.

"I told her we were on Force-damned Tatooine," Anakin said. Obi Wan rolled his eyes, but Anakin still smiled. Rey wondered what it would take to get that grin off of his face. And, privately, she wondered how her grandfather resisted grinning back at Anakin.

"Rey, right now you are on Tatooine and also not. You're inside of the very Force," Obi Wan said. "Your physical body is back on Coruscant, but mentally, you are far, far away."

"What happened?" Rey asked. All she remembered was leaving Ben behind and beginning to look for Chewbacca, but after that… nothing. Her back began to hurt as she dug through her memories.

"On Naboo, you were hit from behind with a pulse canon," Obi Wan explained. "The First Order designed that weapon as a one-hit kill, but the Force wrapped itself around you and protected you. It kept you alive. Now, you have been lying in a deep sleep on Coruscant as you aimlessly drifted through the Force for several weeks. This is the first time since Naboo that you've been lucid— in the Force or in your physical body."

"That's why you two look solid," Rey said. "I'm in the same place you usually are." Obi Wan smiled at his granddaughter and nodded. "And…why are we on Tatooine?"

"Well, let me ask you: did my son ever teach you about the nature of the Force?" Anakin asked, and Rey had to really wrap her head around the fact that man was Luke Skywalker's _father_. Then of course, she realized this man was also _Darth Vader_ , but she decided to put off making that connection until later.

"Of course. He taught me that the Force is infinite and ever-lasting," Rey said, and Anakin nodded in approval.

"Excellent. As Force ghosts, Anakin and I are able to view the past occasionally. We can't interact with the people or events, and it's a fairly useless thing to do, quite frankly," Obi Wan said. And Rey looked around again at Tatooine.

"Why are we _here_?" Rey asked, and at that moment, she heard the sound of a speeder approaching. She looked to her left, and she saw several figures approaching rapidly.

"Podracing was a much better activity," Anakin said, and Obi Wan scoffed. The figures grew closer, and Rey heard laughter ripping through the air over the sound of the speeders' engines. One driver sped ahead of the pack, and just as they grew close enough for Rey to make out their faces, the leader stood atop their speeder's handles, held out their arms, and laughed as they attempted to keep their balance and maintain their speed.

As the rider passed Rey, she heard a very feminine laugh come from the rider, and the rest of her group whooped and howled as she continued to go through the desert. Her head was wrapped in cloth to ward off the desert sun, and Rey was unable to see her face.

"Quite the daredevil," Anakin said. "Reminds me of the time you jumped out of Padme's window to catch an assassin."

"That was one time, Anakin. I was hardly this reckless," Obi Wan said, and Rey gasped.

"Wait, is this—?" Rey began, but the rider took a spill from her speeder and rolled in the sand, still laughing. Her group, cheering, pulled off to a stop in front of her as she got to her feet. The cloth around her head had come unraveled, revealing a young, pretty face.

A face that looked very much like Rey's.

"This is your mother when she was your age. Rey, I'd like you to meet Laila Ayii," Obi Wan said, and Rey's breath caught in her throat. Her mother laughed and shook the sand out of her hair, and Rey felt tears swim to her eyes.

That young woman— that young, daring, wild woman— was her mother. Laila Ayii was there, and Rey looked on her mother for the first time. Rey couldn't move past how similar they looked, and Rey walked closer to get a better look at her mother. Yes, just as Rey had imagined, Laila looked like Rey, but she had Obi Wan's bright eyes, which, had Rey been able to see color, would most likely appear as the same blue.

Her mother. Rey was looking at her mother.

"You have no memories of your parents, so I thought that perhaps you'd like to see what they looked like, at least," Obi Wan said, and Rey heard the slight tremble in his voice, because he hadn't know Laila either. This vibrant woman was a stranger to both of them.

"Thank you," Rey breathed. As she did, one of the group hopped down from his speeder and helped Laila adjust the cloth covering her face. His own covering had come slightly undone and Rey could see his beaming smile as Laila let her hands brush his.

"That's my father. That's Zavil," Rey said. She didn't ask, because she knew just by the way he and Laila looked at each other. _Soul mates_. It was the same way Obi Wan looked at Anakin, Poe looked at Finn, and Ben looked at her.

Her father was tall, towering over Laila. Rey could see long hair falling out from the cloth wrapped on his head. She wished she could see color so she could truly look at her parents. She wanted to see them as they really were when they were alive.

But, stars, they were so alive right then. They were young and wild and bold. Rey wold have never seen her parents like this if they were alive. She would have never seen them so carefree. She watched her mother wink at her father, and he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. The group around them made teasing noises as they hopped back onto their speeders and took off into the desert once more, their laughs echoing back to Rey as she wiped a tear from her eye.

"Rey," Obi Wan said, "I know you want to return to your body, but I need to offer something to you." Rey looked back to her grandfather, she she could see that he was wiping away a tear as well. Anakin loomed behind them, his face unreadable.

"If you'd like, you could stay here. With us," Obi Wan said. "I know that you'll turn down the offer, but should you stay, you'd be able to see more memories like this. You'd get to watch your parents as they grew up, and then as you grew up, and then you'd be able to go to Luke, Leia, and Ben as a Ghost and guide them."

"I thought I wasn't dead," Rey said.

"You aren't. But if you wanted to, you could leave your mortal body behind and become part of the Force. You could die," Anakin said.

"We know that it isn't a very appealing offer," Obi Wan said, "I just felt that you needed to know all of your options."

Rey thought for a moment. There was no doubt in her mind that she wanted to return to her body, the Galaxy, and Ben. But she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like, spending an eternity with her grandfather and all the Jedi before him. She would never suffer pain again, never know loneliness. She would be able to see any where and any time she wished.

But that was a life without adventure. It was a life without risks or dares or challenge. It was a life of watching from the outside, always looking in and wishing she could be a part of it all. It was a life without Finn, Poe, Luke, or Leia. It was a life without color. It was a life without Ben.

"I think it's time that I returned to my body," Rey said. She looked up at her grandfather, and she saw him smile. He held out his arms and pulled her into a hug once more, and Rey knew that until she passed away and let the Force claim her, she would never hug Obi Wan like this. He would never be solid and warm like he felt then.

"I am so proud of you," Obi Wan said, and Rey felt fresh tears burning her eyes. Obi Wan would still be with her, Rey told herself. He just wouldn't be able to hold her, but he'd still be able to guide her and speak with her. But Anakin…

"How come I can even see you?" Rey said, breaking away from her grandfather's embrace and looking to Anakin Skywalker. "I thought I needed to have a direct connection to you in order of your Ghost to be visible."

"Well," Anakin said, "I am your soulmate's grandfather, and that must be worth something."

"That's a bit of a reach," Rey said.

"The Force sometimes isn't too picky," Anakin said, and he put his hand on Rey's shoulder. His hand was gloved, but Rey could feel his mechanical hand underneath. She supposed that she had helped Ben earn his spot as a true Skywalker by severing his hand.

"Try not to let Ben get into too much trouble," Anakin said, and Rey rolled her eyes.

"I'm not in charge of him, and really, between the two of us, I think I might be the one to look out for," Rey said, her mind imagining the adventures and trouble she and Ben could get into once she returned. The Galaxy was theirs to explore, and she'd be damned if she didn't have a ship of her own to explore with.

"Oh, you _are_ wonderful," Anakin chuckled, squeezing her shoulder once. Obi Wan joined at his side, and Rey looked back and forth between the two Jedi before her. She gave her grandfather a smirk, and he must have gotten her message of _so this is your soulmate_ because he shot her a look that very clearly said _don't mention it_. Anakin didn't notice this.

"Now, Rey, just let go and let the Force carry you," Obi wan said.

"Let go?" Rey asked.

"Just… let go of everything. Completely relax," Anakin said. Rey nodded, putting her trust in him, and she closed her eyes. She let go of every thought, every worry, every question in her head. She let go of the images of her parents, of Obi Wan's warmth, of the feel of Anakin's mechanical hand. She let the Force take her, let herself become the Force, and she felt herself slipping away, and yet, she was calm.

—

Before Rey even opened her eyes, she knew she was back in her physical body. She felt clean sheets around her body and tubes stuck into her left arm. More importantly, she could feel the Force moving around her, wrapping around hundreds of people in the same building as her.

There was someone in her room. In fact, she could feel a slight dip in her bed where this person was resting his weight. She knew it was Ben. She would know him anywhere, just by how her chest felt when he was this close.

He mumbled to himself, and Rey strained to hear him, still not moving or opening her eyes. He evidently hadn't noticed that she had returned to her body. She just, for a moment, wished to observe him as he'd been for the previous weeks.

"Come back to me, Rey," Ben mumbled. He sounded so, so tired. "I miss you so much. Please. I love you, just come back to me."

Rey's heart stopped for a second, but the monitor didn't change its beeping to show this.

 _I love you_

 _I love you_

 _I love you_

"I love you, too," Rey said, her voice a hoarse whisper. Ben's weight left the side of her bed quickly, and Rey peeled her eyes open to see Ben standing over her bed, completely bewildered. He was fleshed out with _color_ , and Rey cracked a weak smile at him.

"Rey," Ben said, too stunned to move, but _Force_ , he was gorgeous. Rey looked at him like it was the first time she'd seen him, drinking in every detail. His hair was completely brown and pulled away from his face, exposing the gruesome scar courtesy of his and Rey's duel on Starkiller Base, what felt like a lifetime ago. He was thinner, with bags under his eyes, but he didn't look hurt. Rey looked to his right hand, but what she saw appeared to be flesh. She knew better, though, and knew it was as mechanical as Anakin and Luke's, just in better shape.

"I'm back," Rey said, still whispering. And before she could say more, Ben held her, his body shaking, and Rey didn't even complain about how she couldn't move her arms to hold him back properly.

She was back, she was home. She was with Ben.

"You've been unconscious for weeks," Ben said, clearly crying. Rey felt tears running down her face as she buried herself in Ben's shoulder. "We didn't know what happened to you. Our bond, it felt like our bond was ripped out of my chest. And there were no colors. None."

"I have quite a story to tell you later," Rey said, her voice a bit stronger, but she didn't want to talk. She just wanted Ben to hold her, to prove she was there with him, and then she wanted to hear him say that he loved her again, and she would say it back. Then Rey wanted to kiss Ben until she was dizzy for air.

A gasp from the door interrupted Rey's plans, and when she and Ben untangled themselves and looked to the door, she saw Finn standing there, his mouth open, completely dumbstruck.

"Hi," Rey said, grinning from ear to ear. This time it was Finn who jumped onto her bed and wrapped her into a tight hug, laughing so hard that Rey thought he might have been crying.

"You have no idea how much I missed you," Finn said into Rey's shoulder.

"Payback for your coma after Starkiller Base," Rey said into his shoulder, and Finn laughed and let her go, holding her an arm's length away. Tears shone in Finn's eyes and his smile was blinding. He moved to the foot of her bed, and Ben squeezed into the right side of Rey's bed. Rey leaned on Ben's shoulder and bumped her foot into Finn's leg, and she knew that no matter what the Force could have offered to her had she remained with her grandfather, this was the greatest gift she had ever received. Alive, whole, with the two people she loved most in the Galaxy.

"What time is it?" Rey asked.

"Middle of the night," Finn said.

"The droids won't be doing their rounds for about another hour," Ben said. "Until then, the Galaxy still thinks you're sleeping and won't trouble you for anything."

Finn and Ben shared a looked that Rey could only call _scheming_. Friendship? Between Finn and Ben? Rey smiled and laced her finger's through Ben's. They all had a lot to catch up on.

"So," Rey began, settling in for the one hour of serenity she would be granted, "tell me exactly what I've missed."

* * *

A/N: Well, everyone, this is the second to last chapter. I honestly cannot believe that I made it here. I'll save the sappier stuff for my note at the end of next chapter, but I want to thank you guys again for reading and leaving such kind comments. I really do read every one and screenshot them and send them to all of my friends.

I hope you've enjoyed this wild ride as much as I have, and I'll see you in the next chapter.


	27. Spectrum

Ben stood before the view of Coruscant from his apartment. The sun was beginning to set, turning the sky a lovely orange color, and the lights from distance speeders started turning on.

"Ben?" Rey called from her room. It was her room only in name, really, as she spent most of her time in Ben's room, sharing Ben's bed, but she insisted on having her own space. She had never lived with another person before, and she was still getting used to the fact that she was constantly around another person— she could occasionally get overwhelmed and needed to be alone. Ben completely understood.

"Yes?" Ben replied, turning away from the city view. He adjusted his cape, which had a habit of shifting off-center if he turned too quickly. It was a deep red with a black lining and matched his shirt. In the months since Ben's colors had returned, he'd learned that everyone made the mental connection to Kylo Ren regardless of what colors he wore, but even after they noticed who he was, or who he had been, they didn't seen to care.

"I need you help me zip this thing closed," Rey said. Ben walked to her open door.

"Can't you use the Force to do it?" Ben asked, smirking. He entered her room, which was considerably more cluttered than the rest of the apartment.

"I could, and I could also use the Force for other small tasks that you could do, but there's no fun in that," Rey said, turning the corner, gown swishing as she walked. A deep blue, the gown was made of a fine silk in the skirt and a simmering light blue material in the top. Gold flecks covered it, turning Rey into the night sky. Her hair hung in loose waves just below her jaw, and her eyes were lined with dark kohl that winged out beyond her eyes, giving her a look of danger.

Ben had seen Rey in everything from scavenger's rags to her bare skin, but somehow he had never seen her in something so elegant, so fine. He had never even imaged her like this.

What a fool he was.

Rey evidently noticed his stunned face, because she smirked and turned her back to him, exposing inches of skin that Ben suddenly longed to touch.

"Don't get any ideas," Rey said, and Ben could picture the grin on her face. "We have a wedding starting in an hour, and we aren't going to be late."

"We _could_ be," Ben said, running a finger down Rey's spine. She shivered at the contact and leaned back against Ben. Delighted, Ben brought his mouth to the crook of her neck. Rey made a very satisfied noise.

"Don't give me one of those things," Rey said, angling her head to allow Ben better access to her neck.

"What things?" Ben said, mouth leaving her skin long enough to ask.

"Those bruise things you like doing," Rey said. Ben gently bit her neck, and she let out a soft moan. "The ones we forgot to cover when we had to meet the Senate Leaders for dinner."

"Hickeys?" Ben said, and he brought his mouth back down to her neck, smiling into her skin. The memory of all five Senate Leaders— and Leia— spending the meal trying not to focus on Ben and Rey's necks was one that caused the couple deep embarrassment for a few weeks, but then they learned to laugh it off. Leia, on the other hand, didn't think it was too amusing.

"Yes, hickeys. Don't give me any of those. I won't have time to cover it up," Rey said, but her voice wasn't very convincing. Ben wasn't planning on marking her skin, but he continued kissing up her neck and below her ear, enjoying the tiny noises Rey couldn't help but make.

"You're terrible," Rey said when Ben bit her earlobe.

"We both know that," Ben said, running his hands up her back and beginning to slide Rey's dress off of her shoulders, because, _really_ , there was no way they could possibly be the last ones there, even if they got distracted.

A pointed cough made Ben and Rey freeze, though. Ben's eyes flew open, and there, awkwardly standing in the corner of Rey's room, were both Anakin Skywalker and a man Ben identified as Obi Wan Kenobi.

Both grandfathers were admiring the view from Rey's window instead of looking at their grandchildren. Ben quickly realized that Rey's dress was only on her body because of the fact that he was holding onto the shoulder straps ever so gently, and he moved as fast as possible to secure the dress back onto Rey and zip it closed.

The Force in the room was tense with embarrassment. Ben felt his face heating up, and as he stepped forward to stand next to Rey, he could see that her face was completely red.

"We, er, apologize for the interruption," Obi Wan said, still focusing on the window.

"It's our fault, really. We didn't make sure we weren't going to be walking into the middle of something," Anakin said, examining the architecture of the ceiling.

"Next time, that might be a good idea," Rey choked out.

"I agree," said Ben. It took Ben a moment to remember that Anakin had once lived in this apartment a lifetime ago, when he and Padme had married secretly. What memories did this room bring back?

"We'll make sure to do that next time," Obi Wan said, finally looking back at the couple. Ben had never seen Obi Wan outside of a holo before, and though he glowed the eerie blue of a Force ghost, Ben drank in this man's appearance. He seemed to have barely aged between his years as a General in the Clone Wars and his final sighting in the Republic before it's fall. he carried himself with dignity that proved his title of Jedi Master. He appeared as he looked at the end of the Clone Wars, though Ben knew that he had lived to be a much older man. There was something about him that reminded Ben of Rey.

"Why are you here?" Ben asked, looking directly at Obi Wan.

"We're here to quickly speak with you two, because we heard about your escape plan for tomorrow," Anakin said.

"No," Ben said, "well, okay, that actually answers one question. But, I meant: Obi Wan, how come I can see you? You aren't family and I've never met you. I shouldn't be able to see you." Obi Wan shrugged and rolled his eyes.

"I'm your namesake, so that must count for something," Obi Wan said.

"Bit of a reach," Rey said, and she and Anakin chuckled, like it was an inside joke. Unbelievable. Rey had told Ben and Finn about meeting Anakin during her coma, but Ben didn't think they would have bonded this much.

"Anyways," Anakin said, still smiling at Rey, "we need to warn you two about your little adventure before you run off and no one can find you."

"Dare I ask how you know this?" Ben asked, because he and Rey had only spoken about their plan to run off and explore the galaxy when they were alone in their apartment. They couldn't risk Leia finding them out and guilting them into staying.

"We're part of the Force, we know many things," Anakin said, raising his eyebrows. From next to Ben, Rey frowned.

"So you were spying on us," Rey said.

"Dead men don't spy. They _observe_ ," Obi Wan said, and Rey muttered something nasty in a language Ben couldn't understand. Ben didn't want to think about what else the ghosts had seen and heard. And judging by the look on Anakin's face, he didn't want to think about it either.

"What do you have to say to us?" Ben asked, cutting to the chase. In spite of Ben's attempt to delay himself and Rey, they really did have to be at a wedding within the hour.

"You two must be careful when you're traveling," Anakin said. "There are many places in the Galaxy that are too dangerous of even the most skilled travelers."

"We expected as much," Rey said, shrugging. She had even anticipated arriving on hostile planets, and she had spent many nights awake with Ben, planning for situations where they would have to flee or fight.

"We mean to say, there are places far beyond your understanding of danger," Obi Wan said. "Not because of their inhabitants, but because of the very make up of the planet itself."

"There are planets that are aligned with the Dark Side, and do not take kindly to Jedi exploring them," Anakin said. "These planets will be a test to you, Ben, because of how you walk a dangerous line with alignment to the Force."

Ben's heart gave a nervous jolt at the warning. He had left the Dark Side, and he knew he wasn't truly meant to align with it due to his soulmate bond… but hadn't he been easily turned in the first place?

"These planets, should you ever land on them, will try to seduce you. They will fill your head with lies and visions. You will see the past and you will see versions of the future you never wanted to imagine. You must either avoid them completely or be very careful when you explore," Obi Wan said.

"What planets are these?" Rey asked, and Ben could practically see the gears in Rey's mind turning, imagining their planned route through the Galaxy, figuring out which planets were now too close to Sith planets for comfort.

"Korriban, for starters. Don't go near Korriban under any circumstances," Anakin said. Ben remembered legends of Korriban, of the Valley of the Dark Lords, of the execution chamber, of the barren, desolate landscape. At once point, many years ago, Snake had suggested that once ben's training was over, they would travel there, to the origin of the Sith.

"There are many others, too many to list, each more frightening than the next," Obi Wan said. "You will be able to feel them when you wander too close. The Force around these planets is so strong that, if you are not careful, you could be lured in."

"We just want you to take caution," Anakin said.

"Thank you," Rey said. She locked eyes with her grandfather and seemed to have a conversation with just their expressions for a moment, with Rey giving him a small grin and raised eyebrows, and Obi Wan scowling back to her.

 _Anything you want to share?_ Ben asked though their bond.

 _Family business_ , Rey simply replied. Ben didn't ask anything else, but if it became important, he knew Rey would tell him. Instead, he looked to his grandfather, who was also giving the Kenobi's a look of confusion that mirrored Ben's own.

"We need to get going," Ben said, and Rey looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

"You seemed so determined to be late just a while ago," Rey said, and there was a strange tone in her voice, one that made Ben very tempted to be late, once again. Ben became keenly aware of the fact that their _grandfathers_ were in the same room as them.

"We need to get going," Ben repeated, noticing how Anakin and Obi Wan were fighting to hide their smiles.

"Yes, go enjoy your last night in the public eye," Obi Wan said. "Give Finn and Poe my best wishes."

"They don't know you," Rey said.

"Still, give them my best," Obi Wan said, waving his hand.

"And from me, as well," Anakin said, and Ben realized that this was the first time he had ever had a conversation with his grandfather that hadn't included an argument or bad choices.

"When do you plan to see us next?" Ben asked.

"We don't exactly plan these visits," Obi Wan said. "But whenever we see you next, we'll make sure that you two aren't busy."

And then the ghosts were gone, and ben and Rey were standing in her room, alone.

"Well, that completely took me out of the mood," Rey said. "And besides, we do have a wedding to get to." Ben had gotten good enough at reading her facial expressions to know that the sly grin she was giving him meant _later_.

"Your speeder or mine?" Ben asked, and Rey rolled her eyes as she moved past him out of her room, skit billowing behind her.

"Mine. Don't ask stupid questions," Rey said over her shoulder. And Ben followed her out of the room, onto the balcony, where her speeder was waiting.

—

Rey could have spent her whole life driving through Coruscant. She loved speeding through deserts and open plains alone, but there was something about flying alongside other drivers, twisting down street after street, diving through level after level of the planet that made her heart race.

Poe and Finn were holding their wedding at the top of this sector's tallest building, and Rey could see it from a mile away. She could still pilot with her dress taking up most of her legroom, and pilot she did. Next to her, Ben was pointing out clubs and landmarks as they zoomed through traffic.

Lights of all different colors shone into the speeder's cabin, wind rushed through Rey's hair, and she truly felt alive. Soon, she and Ben would be away from the trivial tasks of political life, free to roam the galaxy, exploring worlds Rey couldn't have dreamed of when she was on Jakku.

"There," Ben said, pointing ahead to a building that stood higher than all of those surrounding it. Rey watched as speeders and ships of all sizes flew onto the docks, and she realized just how huge this wedding was going to be.

Poe and Finn were both war heroes and celebrities, followed by tabloids just as closely as Rey and Ben were. Poe had casually mentioned to Rey that he had offered half of the Senate an invitation.

"Have you ever been to a wedding?" Ben asked as Rey pulled up and they soared above much of the city.

"No. I don't know what to expect," Rey admitted.

"You're going to love it," Ben said. Rey looked at him from the corner of her eye, and he was smiling as he looked off into the distance. The bond in her chest pulled, and she was reminded again just how in love she was.

—

It didn't matter to Rey that she had never been to a wedding before, because she was sure that nothing could compare to Finn and Poe's.

The ceremony had Rey in tears. She and Ben sat in the first row beside Poe's father, who was quick to hug Rey and remark on how much Ben had grown since he had last seen him. He had done the same to Chewbacca once Chewbacca had set him down from the enthusiastic hug he gave. The Wookiee was seated to Ben's right side, and though Rey was on Ben's left, she found their constant Shyriiwook chatter slightly distracting. Luke, who sat on Chewbacca's right, seemed to share the feeling, shushing Chewbacca and Ben occasionally.

Several hundred people were in attendance, from fellow pilots to senators to princes and princesses and all the way down to common life forms from across the Galaxy. Though the hall for the ceremony was massive, Rey saw many guests crowding in the back for standing room.

Finn and Poe entered at the same time, from the main doors, both dressed in their finest suits— Finn wore purple and Poe wore a deep grey. They held hands as they walked to the altar, where Leia stood smiling and waiting.

She read their vows, and Rey teared up. Ben nudged her with his elbow and gave her a teasing smile. But, when Finn and Poe declared their love for one another, Rey caught Ben wiping tears from his cheeks, just the same as she did.

And then it was time for the reception, which was held on the top three floors of the tower, because there were far too many guests to manage a party on just one floor.

Finn and Poe danced first, laughing as they awkwardly danced to the live band's music, looking to the Galaxy that they were the only two in the room. Then, Finn took Rey by the hand and led her out onto the dance floor. Poe did the same to Leia.

"I don't know how to dance," Rey said through a fake smile. Finn placed his hands on her waist and she imitated how Poe had rested his hands on Finn's shoulders just moments before.

"I don't either, so let's have fun with this," Finn said, and he spun her quickly, spinning Rey around the floor in way that did not remind Rey on dancing at all, but she laughed the whole time, and she watched as more guests took partners and moved to dance, though not all danced the same way Finn and Rey did. Many showcased the dances of their homeworlds and showed others how to dance with them. BB-8, C-3PO, and R2-D2 were mixed into the crowd, interacting with dance in a way that Rey could guess meant they were trying to dance.

"This is incredible," Rey breathed, loud enough so only Finn could hear her.

"Thank you," Finn said. "I've never been to a wedding, either, so I'm pretty happy with how these things seem to go." Rey smiled at her friend.

"Have I ever thanked you for how much you've changed my life?" Rey asked, and Finn furrowed his brow as if he were in deep thought.

"No, I don't think so," Finn said. "But then again, I haven't either. All of this because I crashed on Jakku."

"Who the hell would want to go to Jakku?" Rey asked, rolling her eyes and grinning.

"Can I cut in?" Ben asked, politely standing beside Rey. Finn smiled at Ben, because he just couldn't seem to stop smiling, and stepped away from Rey.

"Go for it. I'm going to go find my _husband_ ," Finn said, his voice absolutely giddy on the last word. He disappeared into the crowd of people, but Rey knew he'd be able to find his husband using their soulmate bond.

"You're a talented dancer," Ben said, his hands settling at the same spot that Finn's were just on. Rey playfully hit his arm before looping her arms over his shoulders.

"And you're any better?" Rey asked.

"I am, but I think we'd both rather take it easy right now," Ben said, and Rey couldn't have agreed more. They swayed to the music, lost in their own pocket of the crowd.

"You'll have to really dance with me sometime," Rey said. Ben smiled at her.

"On any planet you want," Ben said. "But first, I want to know, what do you think of weddings?"

"I love them," Rey said. "Everyone here is so happy, and Poe and Finn are having the best nights of their lives. It's incredible. Can't you feel the Force?"

"I can. It's overflowing with positive energy," Ben said. "The reason I asked is because I wanted to know if you'd ever want something like this."

Rey froze, nearly stumbling over in her heels.

"Are you… are you proposing?" Rey whispered, not wanting other guests, much less the tabloid droids snapping pictures nearby, to hear. Her voice was much higher than she had wanted it to be, but she couldn't help it in her shock. Ben laughed, much louder than Rey thought he would.

"Not exactly," Ben said. "I'm not asking you to marry me right now. But I was just wondering, if in the future, you would want to throw something this extravagant."

"Oh," Rey said, suddenly relieved.

"Proposing at another couple's wedding is sometimes considered rude," Ben said.

"And kidnapping and tying your soulmate to a chair isn't?" Rey said, but then added, "I don't know what I would want for our wedding. It's nice to have all of these people here, and a big party like this is fun to go to, but for us? I don't think so."

"I completely agree," Ben said. "Maybe we should elope."

"Elope?" Rey asked, once again reminded that she was learning new things every day.

"Run away together and get married without anyone knowing," Ben said, a wicked smile on his face.

Even with a grisly scar and brown hair, sometimes Rey could still see the handsome face that awoke her colors in that interrogation room. Sometimes she didn't like to think of that face, because that was Kylo Ren, not Ben Solo, but at other times, she thought that the memory of Kylo Ren meant change. It meant promises of new beginnings, of new hopes.

"Really?" Rey said, returning his grin. "Then, aren't we eloping tomorrow?"

"It's always a possibility," Ben said. "Always an option."

And Rey thought back to that day she met Finn on Jakku, and then Ben on Takodana. When she had awoken that morning, she didn't think she had any options. Her plan was to leave BB-8 at the outpost and carry on with her day, not start the rest of her life. Not have so many options and choices laid out before her.

"You're right," Rey said. "We'll leave that discussion for another time, though. It _is_ rude to propose at someone else's wedding."

"But one day?" Ben asked, and Rey knew that he was perfectly aware of her answer.

"One day," Rey agreed, and she held herself close to Ben's chest, listening to his heart beat, thinking of the future tomorrow, the next day, the next year held. And in spite of not knowing what that future was, she knew that she wouldn't face it alone. She would never have to face the future alone again.

Rey would face it all with Ben. Together. She thought it, and the bond in her chest warmed, and she marveled at how wonderful life was.

* * *

A/N: Oh my god. I can't find the words to explain what I'm feeling right now. Nine months of planning, writing, procrastinating, and editing have all lead to this.

This whole fic began in January as a 2 AM FaceTime call with my friend Kat, who edited the first eleven chapters of this fic, and I'm always going to be thanking her for that.

Huge thank you's to Kat (obviously), Renee, and Cynthia, who each encouraged me and put up with my half-asleep ramblings about this fic (in spite of the fact that NONE OF THEM actually ship Reylo).

And thank you to each and every one of you reading this. When I drowsily wrote down the details of this fic, I had no idea it would blow up like this. I didn't even know if people would read it. Every comment, favorite, and hit kept me moving and writing.

This is the first time I had ever written a fic so complex, planned a fic so extensively, and actually finished a multi-chapter fic, and that is all because of YOU.

I don't know when I'll be writing a new fic (NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I have a book to focus on), but I will be back one day. I don't know for what fandom or ship, but I will be back, and I hope you all still are kind enough to read what I put out. My tumblr is belowtheprecipice, and should you ever have comments or jokes to share, you'll find me there.

Thank you. Thank you so much.


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